SEATTLE — A couple who lived in Redmond for 40 years is heading home Friday after being trapped in Jamaica for four and a half days when Hurricane Melissa became one of the most powerful storms to make landfall in nearly a century.

Ryan and Cindy Litchfield had traveled to Jamaica to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, expecting a peaceful return to West Coast from paradise. Instead, hours before their scheduled flight home to California, the airport shut down and their Montego Bay hotel went into lockdown as the hurricane accelerated toward land.

More than 500 people packed into the hotel ballroom. After the edge of the eye passed through, Litchfield said he heard the roof rip off.

"The whole ceiling dropped. And that's when the collective scream was, because then the hurricane

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