{"id":4065,"date":"2025-12-16T07:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4065"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:05:13","slug":"troy-williamson-how-hurricane-melissa-ruined-british-boxers-family-home-and-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4065","title":{"rendered":"Troy Williamson: How Hurricane Melissa ruined British boxer&#8217;s family home and bar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Troy Williamson still remembers the hollow feeling in his stomach as he refreshed his phone again and again, trying to reach his father in Jamaica.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hurricane Melissa had torn across the island where the British boxer&#8217;s father, brothers and sisters lived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When nobody could get in touch we had no idea what had happened,&#8221; recalls Williamson. &#8220;The worst case [was] that they weren&#8217;t here any more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For four days, the Darlington fighter &#8211; who faces Callum Simpson live on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer on Saturday &#8211; heard nothing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He trained and waited, but feared the worst while images of the storm&#8217;s destruction spread across social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It felt like a very long time, especially when you saw how bad it was,&#8221; the 34-year-old tells BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Eventually, a message flashed up on Facebook Messenger from his father, Gerald Atkinson, who somehow reached a wi-fi signal after the phone lines had failed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There was a sigh of relief, before reality set in. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The hurricane had wiped out the house and family-run sports bar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">G&#8217;s Cool Spot was well known among locals and British holidaymakers visiting the costal town of Black River in St Elizabeth. Now it&#8217;s a ruin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It demolished their home and business. As it stands they have nowhere to live. They&#8217;re trying to repair and rebuild,&#8221; adds Williamson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The sports bar is gone, basically. It&#8217;s washed away. It needs a full rebuild.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The hurricane struck Jamaica on 28 October as a category five storm, resulting in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cze6zgdgw9po\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">28 confirmed deaths<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Approximately 1.5 million people &#8211; more than half of the nation&#8217;s population &#8211; have been impacted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lenders have together put forward up to $6.7bn (\u00a35bn) over three years to support Jamaica&#8217;s recovery from Hurricane Melissa, alongside wider international aid efforts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williamson himself has launched a fundraising campaign and already received donations &#8211; including \u00a31,000 from the auction of a signed glove &#8211; to help cover basics like food, clothing and temporary accommodation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His brother will fly out in December, and Williamson hopes to follow. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before he can board that plane, Williamson must face Barnsley&#8217;s unbeaten Simpson &#8211; a tough assignment at a testing moment in his own career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/clyk4er100zo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Troy Williamson still remember&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}