As the sun rises each morning over Miami Gardens, Kimali Stephen wakes with a familiar ache — the hollow fear of not knowing whether her father is still alive in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa ripped through the island as a Category 5 storm last week.
“I just feel empty. Hollow. Like just a shell,” she told CBS News, her voice trembling. “Until I can put my eyes on my dad — at least hear his voice.”
Her father, 85-year-old Albert Stephen, a retired Jamaicanmilitary veteran, has been missing since before the hurricane made landfall. He had moved to Argyle Mountain, a quiet community in Jamaica’s Westmoreland parish, to live out his retirement years.
Their last conversation — now immortalized in a short video Kimali keeps replaying on her phone — took place hours before the storm tore through his hillside home. Then, silence…