Waiting for Hurricane Melissa as my home becomes the storypublished at 06:01 GMT
06:01 GMT
Nick Davis
Reporting from Jamaica
A few days ago I
joked with a former colleague that I was regretting my choice of living in an
old Edwardian house here in Kingston, Jamaica.
The building was converted into
flats decades ago and its old bones have seen their fair share of storms – but
probably not one like this.
Outside my
window is a century palm, a majestic 50-year-old tree taller than my building.
My hope is that in the next few days it’ll still be here.
Someone I follow on
Instagram shared that he was driving around to take mental snapshots of the
city, because the capital likely won’t look the same for a while after this
storm.
The BBC has
journalists all over the world, but often they’re “parachuted in” to
gather the snippets and factoids to then transform into the record of events.
Journalists say we should never “be the story”, but this time my life
and my family and friends are the top line, because Hurricane Melissa is a
threat to our lives here.
I’d like to dedicate this first live page dispatch to my cousin Andrew, who works for the power company, away from his girls, to make sure the infrastructure we need is in place when we need it.