A shopkeeper in Newland, Greater Portmore, said she sat on her veranda in the dark of the night crying and praying as she watched Hurricane Beryl take the roof off her shop, hoping her house would not be its next victim.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said she could not sleep a wink when it started to rain on Wednesday because she was filled with worry.

“I sat on the veranda the whole night and me did a cry, but mi a tell you the truth, I wasn’t fretting about the shop like how I was fretting about my little part of the house weh me inna,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“Mi see when the shop roof lift off and the tree block it, that’s why it never fly away. The roof did stand up inna the air but the tree catch it and then when the breeze stop blow it just drop back down,” she recalled.

“I was there on the veranda begging God say me nuh want my [house] roof blow away. Mi just pray to God and say, ‘Please, nuh make my house top blow away,’ ” she said.

Her prayers were answered because the roof of her house stood strong against the harsh winds of the powerful Category 4 hurricane.

“Mi thank God when it stop [rain] and the roof was still on the house, because me couldn’t manage it a fly off,” she said.

The woman, who sells household chemicals, such as bleach, fabric softener and soap, said that before it started to rain she placed some of her powdered products in her house, leaving behind some bottled chemicals she thought could withstand the harsh weather.

She said that when her roof tore off, rainwater drenched the inside of her shop, but luckily, not much damage was done to her stock.

“Me still a go see what I can save and sell things outside of my house. If the people come I will still sell them because a my little hustle that,” she said, adding that she is a tenant at the shop.

“I am going to take some pictures and show the owner and see if them can fix it. But if them a take too long I might have to just fix it myself and take it back out of the rent, because even though it look so I still have to give them a little something to rent the shop,” she explained.

While reflecting on the events of Wednesday night, she said she is thankful that her community was spared the worst of the life-threatening hurricane.

“Mi hear people a say a just the tail we get, then suppose we did get the full storm? What we woulda do? Nuff place nuh really get damage still, because they say Portmore have the hill to cover we, so we did little bit alright, but it did terrible, man,” she said, shaking her head as she looked around the community.

“Mi nuh sleep nuh time. Mi just deh pon the veranda and me a look and watch everything. At one point me bawl out ‘God, you cyaan make it go weh now?’” she said, lifting her hands as she looked up to the sky.

With the hurricane now past Jamaica, she said she will focus on getting her shop up and running, but the first thing on her to-do list is to get some much-needed rest.