{"id":340038,"date":"2025-10-29T05:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T05:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/340038\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T05:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T05:31:10","slug":"phoenix-friends-stranded-forced-to-ride-out-hurricane-melissa-in-jamaica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/340038\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix friends stranded, forced to ride out Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Hurricane Melissa is now among the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2025\/10\/29\/hurricane-melissa-is-among-most-powerful-atlantic-hurricanes-record\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2025\/10\/29\/hurricane-melissa-is-among-most-powerful-atlantic-hurricanes-record\/\">most powerful Atlantic hurricanes<\/a> on record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">The monster storm strengthened on Tuesday before hitting Jamaica, bringing with it maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph). It\u2019s the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall since Hurricane Dorian battered the Bahamas in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">What started as a tropical birthday trip for Alexis Maldonado and Tavianna Smith quickly turned into a nightmare when they became stranded in Jamaica during the storm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The pair booked a trip to Montego Bay for Smith\u2019s 28th birthday and were supposed to return to Phoenix this past Sunday, but the Montego Bay airport closed that day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe tried multiple airlines booking. We spent thousands of dollars trying to get out,\u201d Maldonado said. \u201cWe were getting flights and they kept getting canceled. The airlines were canceling. The only airlines that were flying out, they were completely booked. We tried racing to the airport. We tried getting on any flight anywhere in the U.S. and just nothing was working. And we just, we got stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Arizona\u2019s Family spoke with the friends from their hotel room in Jamaica on Tuesday afternoon, as they were on lockdown, riding out the storm and making a barricade of mattresses and furniture between them and the windows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI would say it\u2019s terrifying. It\u2019s very loud. We don\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Maldonado said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe hear the winds, we hear the wind, the door, the balcony, everything is shaking,\u201d added Smith.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Maldonado and Smith were able to ride out the worst of the hurricane, but remain in lockdown as rain continues to fall in Jamaica.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI love my family. I miss you guys, and I hope I get home soon,\u201d said Maldonado.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe will be getting home soon,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Montego Bay airport remains closed as of Tuesday night. Officials with the airport posted on social media ahead of the closure that they would conduct a full assessment after the storm passes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Hurricane Melissa is now among the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. The monster storm&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":340039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,2693,166184,1589,7183,3883,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-340038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-azfamily","12":"tag-disaster","13":"tag-hurricane-melissa","14":"tag-phoenix","15":"tag-phoenix-news","16":"tag-storms","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115455818840399801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}