Hurricane Beryl turns Louisville newlyweds' honeymoon into 'personal hell'

Louisville Courier Journal

• A Louisville couple's honeymoon in Jamaica has turned into a "personal hell" because of Hurricane Beryl.
• The couple has had trouble getting food, water, or information.
• Jordan and Maggie Paskitti are desperate for an affordable plan to get them back home to Louisville.

Hurricane Beryl has turned a long-planned honeymoon for a pair of Louisville public school employees into an “absolute personal hell.”

Jordan and Maggie Paskitti got married last November but delayed their honeymoon.

Jordan, an assistant principal at Ramsey Middle School, and Maggie, a mental health practitioner at Ballard High School, planned to take advantage of summer vacation with a long stay at the all-inclusive Excellence Resort in Oyster Bay, Jamaica.

Everything was, well, excellent until Hurricane Beryl came barreling toward them.

On July 2, the day before they planned to leave, the young couple received a phone call from resort staff telling them to pack up their things “right now” from their beach villa and make their way to the main hotel building.

“It started getting crazy outside, to the point where we just ran down to the front desk and said ‘What do we need to do? We need help',” Jordan said.

They were eventually installed in an interior room in the main hotel building.

They didn’t know what to expect during the hurricane and received little information from the resort staff about how to handle it.

“The hurricane came, and they didn't say a word. I'm sitting here, putting couches against the wall, putting beds against the wall, no support,” Jordan Paskitti said. “We had no internet, we had no power, and we're trapped in a room.”

Since then, they’ve had trouble getting food, water, or information.

They’ve been living on snacks they happened to have stashed away or could scrounge up from the resort: A Snickers. A $30 can of chips. A few apples. Peanuts. Oreos.

“When we got in the room, there were a couple of bottles of water,” Jordan said. “So we’ve just been trying to ration it the best that we possibly can.”

“All of the restaurants have closed. It's just every man for himself,” Jordan said.

They’ve tried calling down to the resort front desk but often get a busy signal: “It almost felt like everyone had just left.”

The storm, which is now heading toward Texas, caused the deaths of at least 11 people in Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and northern Venezuela.

Mounting costs

What Jordan and Maggie most want now is a plan for getting home — one they can afford.

“We saved and saved money for our trip for nine months after we got married,” Jordan said.

Their planned return flight on Southwest Airlines is postponed until July 7, and they’re worried that flight will be canceled, delayed or overbooked.

They identified a different flight back that will cost $5,000 per ticket — an astronomical sum for the two public school employees.

The couple is also being charged close to $2,000 for the extra nights at the resort while they wait for the weather to calm down and flights to be restored.

'We just want help'

The Paskittis do not have local cell phone service and have been relying on the resort’s Wi-Fi to communicate via Facebook and Facetime.

The lack of connection has made them afraid to venture too far from the resort. For example, they’re worried if they go to the airport and their flight gets canceled, they won’t be able to communicate with the outside world.

To underscore the point, their connection failed for almost an hour on Friday night following a power outage.

The couple is in the process of reaching out to elected officials to see what help the state and federal government can provide.

“No matter where Louisvillians may be, my office will always be there to help and do everything in our power to bring Kentuckians home,” U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who represents Louisville, said in a statement.

“We are public school employees that love kids. We love home, we love Louisville and wanted to have a honeymoon, and it has turned into a prison nightmare with no help,” Paskitti said. “And at the same time, everyone is gouging us on every price that they could possibly imagine, and we just want help.”

Reach Rebecca Grapevine at rgrapevine@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @RebGrapevine.

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