Rohan Thompson was keeping a close eye on Melissa from St. Catharines, Ont., where he works as a temporary farm worker, as the Category 5 hurricane approached his homeland earlier this week.
The seasonal farm worker from Jamaica’s Clarendon parish has been in Canada since April, and is scheduled to return home late November or early December.
Thompson could not find the words to describe how he felt after Melissa, one of the most powerful hurricanes to strike the Caribbean, ravaged Jamaica on Tuesday.
“I never get a good sleep [that] night because [of] that devastation,” Thompson told CBC News.
“My girlfriend is from St. Elizabeth, and I tried to contact her. Nothing, nothing … so I don't get much sleep.”
Melissa made landfall just before 12 p.m. E.T. Tuesday, with 297 km/h winds, near New Hope in St. Elizabeth — considered Jamaica’s breadbasket, because it’s where most of the island’s agricultural production takes place.
The hurricane left up to 90 per cent of all structures in Black River, also in St.
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