A Westmoreland family’s deadly fight against the storm
Published:Sunday | November 2, 2025 | 12:12 AM
A Westmoreland family’s desperate attempt to escape the stinging conditions of Hurricane Melissa ended in tragedy when the house they were fleeing from crumbled, killing 18-year-old Monique Coke.
The woman, who was eight months pregnant, was confirmed to be autistic.
Crushed beneath the weight of the two-bedroom wooden structure, her uncle, Steve Brown, told The Sunday Gleaner that the family had no choice but to cover her with scraps from the wreckage and seek cover from the furious elements of the storm.
He said visibility was poor, describing conditions in the Waterworks, Petersfield, community as white with a powerful and howling wind.
Brown, who appeared shaken by the incident, said the power of the storm, which made landfall in Westmoreland on Tuesday, first exposed him when it bowled over his bedroom at the front of the house.
Slipping through an opening in the partially disjointed structure, he said he got to the side of the house to alert his sister Ann-Marie Coke, her five-year-old son, Mario Jackson, and daughter, Monique, to get out of their bedroom, which, at that time, was still holding.
“Me run to the side, and by the time me fi call to them and tell them watch out, them start go under the bed already. When the three a them under there, the breeze start blow down fi them part (bedroom) pon them,” he said.
He said the force of the wind pushed against the bed frame, moving it into a position that pinned Monique to the floor before the walls of the bedroom collapsed, putting added weight on her.
He said his sister and nephew, who were also still trapped under the bedframe, managed to get out, soon discovering that Monique was pinned down and not moving.
“Look like Monique did at the back under the bed. A so come she never get fi come out,” he theorised.
“When we look and see seh she naah move and her mother say she dead, we couldn’t move her. We pull the rest of the bed over her to cover her that the breeze nuh lift her weh,” he said.
He said they were in the rain with her body for over two hours before going to shelter at a nearby one-bedroom concrete house.
“Them deh time the place white. You can’t see nothing at all,” he said.
Brown said on Wednesday, the body was picked up by funeral home workers and the police.
Describing his niece as quiet, he said she spoke only when spoken to and had a reserved personality.
He expressed sorrow over her death, mentioning that the storm has taken a lot from the family.
“It’s the first we ever see anything like this. We lose everything,” he said.
A day in hell
Their neighbour, Lauriston Griffiths, described Tuesday as a day in hell, recalling how aggressively the storm had moved through their community in central Westmoreland.
“Hell break loose. Affi run out of that,” the man said, pointing to his one-bedroom wooden structure.
He said residents did not believe that they were in any danger when warnings came that Melissa, a Category 5 storm, would be a direct hit.
“First me see this something happen. The same night it come, me affi run out go over deh so go shelter inna the likkle piece a concrete house. Me deh at the back door and see the front of me house a nyam a come down. Me frighten fi see seh the whole house nuh gone now,” Griffiths said.
He said his roof was torn off by the hurricane piece by piece and that he could hear the cement blocks he had placed to secure it fall to the ground.
“When me run out, me hear the girl and her brother, saying, ‘Monique! Monique!’. But I couldn’t see anything good. The whole place white; me affi run go look cover fi fimi self. But them bend down over him a shake him seh, ‘Monique! Monique!’. Look like a run them a go run out and the house come down pon them sudden.
“Oh God, man, the wind [was] very dangerous. Very dangerous. Believe me to God,” the man said.