Key events
On the ground Jamaicans are bracing for the approaching storm.
Ava Brown is in St Elizabeth, which is expected to be one of the worst-affected areas, and the author and publisher said that despite taking every possible precaution, she was scared.
“I am a single mom so I had one of my neighbours help me to batten down my windows. We had to move certain things away from the house,” she said.
I’m really scared. It’s scary because, for example, you worry about how to ration the food.
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg also report from Jamaica that Jason Henzell, the chair of a hotel in the popular tourist destination Treasure Beach, said he decided to leave his St Elizabeth home and relocate his family to Kingston as he saw the effects of the storm.
Henzell said that despite his efforts to “lead by example” and encourage other residents to leave the area and seek shelter elsewhere, some have chosen to remain.
Jamaicans are very deep in their faith … So as a people we [tend] to think that we can pray something away. And for the most part, we have been spared. So there is a feeling as though the Lord is going to protect us. He’s going to take [the hurricane] into a different direction…
But you know … at some point, the luck is going to run out, the blessings are going to run out. And I just, I hope and pray this is not that day, but it is looking like it is that day.
Hurricane Melissa began as a cluster of thunderstorms off the coast of west Africa and travelled west and developed into a depression, reaching tropical storm status to the north of Venezuela a week ago.
Its rapid intensification over the weekend strengthened Melissa to category 4 as it slowly moved west through the Caribbean Sea, reaching category 5 intensity on Monday morning with sustained winds of 160mph (257km/h).
As Brendan Wood and Lauren Herdman report in our weather tracker, if the storm maintains its current strength it will make it the strongest of only five hurricanes ever recorded to hit Jamaica directly.
Melissa’s notably slow traversal – averaging barely 5mph (8km/h) in recent days and now at 2mph (4km/h) – will exacerbate the impact, with extremely high rainfall along its path. Totals of 200-400mm (8in-16in) are likely across Jamaica by Tuesday evening, rising to 1,000mm in places.
Similar amounts are expected in south-eastern Cuba from late Tuesday and into Wednesday.
In comparison, London and Paris receive about 650mm a year.
Here are some images showing the hurricane’s forecast path as it heads towards Jamaica from the south and the likelihood of it packing hurricane-force winds across a five-day forecast.
Melissa is currently reported as being centred about 150 miles (240km) south-west of Kingston and about 330 miles (530km) south-west of Guantánamo, Cuba.
The system had maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280km/h) and was moving north-northeast at 2mph (4km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness said the country’s western end faced the worst destruction.
“I don’t believe there is any infrastructure within this region that could withstand a category 5 storm, so there could be significant dislocation,” he told CNN.
Landslides, fallen trees and numerous power outages have been reported in Jamaica ahead of Hurricane Melissa, with officials warning that the cleanup and damage assessment will be slow.
Forecasters said the storm was expected to make landfall early Tuesday and slice diagonally across the island, entering near St Elizabeth parish in the south and exiting around St Ann parish in the north.
Hours before the storm, the government said it had done all it could to prepare as it warned of catastrophic damage, the Associated Press is reporting
“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a category 5,” said the prime minister, Andrew Holness.
The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.
Amid the expectation of a life-threatening storm surge of up to four metres (13 feet) across southern Jamaica, officials are concerned about the impact on some hospitals along the coastline.
Health minister Christopher Tufton said some patients were relocated from the ground floor to the second floor, “and [we] hope that will suffice for any surge that will take place”.
The US National Hurricane Centre has again warned on social media that Melissa is “expected to bring catastrophic and life-threatening winds, flooding and storm surge” to Jamaica on Tuesday.
The director of the centre in Miami, Dr Michael Brennan, said earlier in a live update on Monday that with the storm centre forecast to reach Jamaica’s coast “sometime early Tuesday”, destructive winds were expected in Melissa’s eyewall as it made landfall and moved across the island.
He said:
So we could have complete damage, destruction of shelters, homes and buildings in the path of that eyewall, not just along the coast but in areas of high terrain across the central part of the island as the centre of Melissa moves across the island during the day on Tuesday …
Everyone in Jamaica needs to be in their safe place now to ride out the storm all the way through tomorrow.
We’re also very concerned about the potential for life-threatening storm surge inundation near and to the right of where the centre crosses the south coast early tomorrow, with the potential for nine to 13 feet [2.7 to 4 metres] of inundation.
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of Hurricane Melissa as it moves closer to making landfall in Jamaica and threatens catastrophic destruction from flooding, winds and landslides. Here’s the latest as it as just passed 12 midnight in Kingston.
Jamaican officials called on the public to get to higher ground and shelters on Monday evening ahead of the category 5 hurricane, with the prime minister warning it could be a massively destructive storm – the island’s most violent on record.
The storm was on track to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday before coming ashore in Cuba later in the day and then heading toward the Bahamas. Melissa has been blamed for seven deaths in the northern Caribbean as it moved towards Jamaica.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Melissa was “potentially catastrophic” and that “multiple life-threatening hazards” were in play in Jamaica. Among them was up to 13 feet (four metres) of storm surge inundation on parts of the south coast.
Andrew Holness, the Jamaican prime minister, said as the storm neared: “I have been on my knees in prayer.”
In other key developments:
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Melissa was centred about 155 miles (245km) south-west of Kingston on Monday night local time. The system had maximum sustained winds of 175mph (280km/h) and was moving north-west at 2mph (4km/h), the US National Hurricane Centre said.
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At category 5 – the top of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale – Melissa would be the strongest hurricane on record to hit Jamaica directly.
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Parts of eastern Jamaica could see up to 30 inches (76cm) of rain, the centre said, citing the likelihood of “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides”.
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Mandatory evacuations were ordered in flood-prone communities in Jamaica, with buses ferrying people to safe shelter, although some people insisted on staying. Jamaican government officials said they were worried that fewer than 1,000 people were in the more than 130 shelters open across the island.
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Melissa has been blamed for seven deaths in the northern Caribbean as it headed towards Jamaica.
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In eastern Cuba, a hurricane warning was in effect for the Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Holguin provinces, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Las Tunas. Up to 20 inches (51cm) of rain was forecast for parts of Cuba, along with a significant storm surge along the coast.
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Cuban officials said they would evacuate more than 600,000 people from the region, including Santiago, the island’s second-largest city. Long bus lines formed in some areas.
With agencies
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