Hurricane Melissa strengthened to Category 5 strength Monday as it approached Jamaica, bringing up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain and a life-threatening storm surge.
Melissa is expected to land on the island on Tuesday and transit Cuba and the Bahamas by Wednesday.
Melissa was centered about 205 kilometers south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 505 kilometers south-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 260 kilometers per hour and was moving westward at a speed of six kilometers per hour, the center said.
Hurricane Melissa has strengthened into a Category 4 major hurricane and could strengthen into a Category 5 storm on Sunday evening, dumping torrential rain and threatening catastrophic flooding in the northern Caribbean, including Haiti and Jamaica, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
Category 5 is the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds in excess of 155 mph. Melissa is the strongest hurricane in recent history to directly hit the small Caribbean nation.
According to the hurricane center, it could rain up to one meter in some local areas in eastern Jamaica and up to 40 centimeters in western Haiti.
“Catastrophic flash floods and numerous landslides are likely,” it said.
“I would urge Jamaicans to take this seriously,” said Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of the Disaster Risk Management Council of Jamaica. “Don’t play with Melissa. It’s not a safe thing.”
Deaths in Haiti, Dominican Republic
The slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.
After Jamaica, the hurricane was expected to hit eastern Cuba again later on Tuesday. A hurricane warning was in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Holguin, and a tropical storm warning was in effect for Las Tunas. Up to 51 centimeters of rain was forecast for parts of Cuba, as well as significant storm surge along the coast.
Melissa could be the strongest hurricane Jamaica has seen in decades, said Evan Thompson, chief director of the Jamaica Weather Service. He warned that cleanup and damage assessment would be significantly delayed due to expected landslides, flooding and blocked roads.
In addition to the rainfall, Melissa is likely to cause a life-threatening storm surge on Jamaica’s southern coast, peaking about four meters above the ground, near and east of where the center of Melissa makes landfall, the U.S. center said.
“Don’t make stupid decisions,” warned Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s transport minister. “We are in a very, very serious time in the next few days.”
The storm has already brought heavy rains in the Dominican Republic, where schools and government offices were forced to remain closed Monday in four of nine provinces still under red alert.
Melissa damaged more than 750 homes across the country and left more than 3,760 people homeless. Officials said flooding also affected access to at least 48 communities.
In neighboring Haiti, the storm destroyed crops in three regions, including 15 hectares of corn crops, at a time when at least 5.7 million people, more than half the country’s population, are facing crisis famine and 1.9 million of them are facing starvation.
“Flooding is hindering access to farmland and markets, endangering crops and the winter agricultural season,” the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Melissa was expected to continue dumping torrential rain across southern Haiti and the southern Dominican Republic in the coming days.
