CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — There's a large population of Jamaican people in and around the Queen City worried about family and friends on the island ahead of Hurricane Melissa, not to mention many American tourists on vacation who are stuck for the foreseeable future.

The sea is rough, the skies are gray, and people in Jamaica are preparing for the storm's wrath. Some are doing so by filling up sandbags, and others are boarding up their homes.

"It's carrying a lot of water," said Gaynor Russell, president of the Jamaican American Cultural Association in Charlotte. "It's slow-moving. A lot of wind. And so those three combinations would be very devastating to the island."

Russell has family on the island.

"I think Jamaicans as a whole are taking it a little bit more serious than

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