Hurricane Melissa has been cutting a deadly path through the Caribbean, strengthening into a Category 4 storm as it crawled along a worryingly slow course towards Jamaica and the island of Hispaniola.
Melissa has already been blamed for three deaths in Haiti this week, as its outer bands brought heavy rains and landslides to the impoverished nation.
In the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, a 79-year-old man was found dead after being swept away in a stream, local officials said Saturday. A 13-year-old boy was missing.
“You feel powerless, unable to do anything, just run away and leave everything behind,” Angelita Francisco, a 66-year-old homemaker who fled her neighborhood in the Dominican Republic, told AFP through tears.
Floodwater had inundated her house, causing her refrigerator to float away as trash bobbed around the home.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said today that Melissa had intensified into a Category 4 hurricane, packing winds of about 225km per hour.
Storm surge crashing into a seawall before the arrival of Hurricane Melissa in Kingston
The storm was expected to set off “life-threatening and catastrophic” flooding and landslides in parts of Jamaica and southern Hispaniola, the NHC said, forecasting “continued rapid intensification…followed by fluctuations in intensity.”
Melissa was “expected to be a major hurricane when making landfall in Jamaica tomorrow night or Tuesday morning, and southeastern Cuba late Tuesday,” it added.
As of today, Melissa was about 190km southeast of Jamaica’s capital Kingston, and 450 km southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba.
The Dominican Republic’s emergency operations centre said nine of 31 provinces were on red alert yesterday due to risk of flash floods, rising rivers and landslides.
Melissa could bring 38cm to 76cm of rain in portions of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica, the NHC said.
Workers prune trees ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Melissa in Santiago de Cuba
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday urged residents of flood-prone areas to heed warnings and be prepared to evacuate.
“If you live in an area that was flooded before, expect that it will flood again,” he said.
Norman Manley International Airport, which serves Kingston, announced it would close yesterday evening and urged the public not to travel there.
The Jamaica Information Service government agency said on Saturday that all seaports had been closed.
Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.
The last major hurricane to impact Jamaica was Beryl in early July 2024 – an abnormally strong storm for the time of year.
Beryl brought downpours and strong winds to Jamaica as it moved past the island’s southern coast, leaving at least four people dead.