{"id":147614,"date":"2025-10-27T10:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147614\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T10:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:19:08","slug":"hurricane-melissa-strengthens-as-it-nears-jamaica-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147614\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa strengthens as it nears Jamaica, Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Melissa has been upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane heading towards Jamaica and Cuba and is expected to bring catastrophic floods, landslides and storm surges to the region, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has said.<\/p>\n

Melissa was located about 505km south-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, packing maximum sustained winds of 260 kmh, NHC said.<\/p>\n

“A slow turn toward the northwest and north is expected today and tonight, followed by a northeastward acceleration beginning on Tuesday and continuing through at least Thursday,” NHC said.<\/p>\n

Melissa is expected to make landfall in Jamaica this evening or Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

It is likely to hit southeastern Cuba late tomorrow.<\/p>\n

In Jamaica, authorities have implored residents to evacuate to nearly 900 shelters around the country, providing assistance to those wanting to leave.<\/p>\n

Last night, Prime Minister Andrew Holness issued mandatory evacuation orders for Port Royal in Kingston and six other areas.<\/p>\n

“Many of these communities will not survive this flooding,” Desmond McKenzie, minister of local government, said at a press conference earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

“Kingston is low, extremely low … No community in Kingston is immune from flooding.”<\/p>\n

\"A
\nA fallen light pole in St Catherine parish, near Portmore in Jamaica<\/p>\n

Both international airports were closed.<\/p>\n

Earlier yesterday, some residents were choosing to stay put, and authorities said some have refused to board evacuation buses.<\/p>\n

“We are riding out the storm, we’re not going to go anywhere. Just sitting down and watch everything, make sure everything’s working good,” said Douglas Butler, a local boat captain in Port Royal.<\/p>\n

“I just take things easy. As long as I have my food, I can eat. That is the most important thing.”<\/p>\n

The NHC said Melissa is expected to bring 40 to 80 centimetres of rain to Jamaica and southern Hispaniola with a local maximum of up to 1 metre.<\/p>\n

Eastern Cuba is expected to receive 25 to 40 centimetres, with local amounts of up to 50 centimetres.<\/p>\n

Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s information minister, said the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency is ready to provide assistance, and several international partners have already pledged support.<\/p>\n

“We’ve heard the rainfall numbers. They’re numbers we’ve never heard before,” Morris Dixon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa has been upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane heading towards Jamaica and Cuba and is expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-147614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115445626794606218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}