Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Jamaica | Hurricane Melissa

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica, where residents braced for high winds, flash floods and landslides from the Category 5 storm, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in history.

This slow-moving colossus is the most powerful hurricane to hit Jamaica since records began in 1851 and will linger on the island for hours before turning northeast.

Jamaica’s government said it had done all it could to prepare, mandating the evacuation of low-lying areas, while warning of serious consequences for the country’s 2.8 million people.

Desmond McKenzie, vice-chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council, on Tuesday urged people to seek shelter and stay at home as the storm passes through the island. “Jamaica, this is not the time to be brave,” he said.

Streets in the capital, Kingston, remained largely empty on Tuesday, with images showing trees bent by the force of the wind.

“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said. “The question now is how quickly the recovery will be. That’s the challenge.”

Category 5 is the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds exceeding 157 mph (250 km/h). The US National Hurricane Center reported that Melissa had sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), with higher gusts.

“This is an expected catastrophic situation in Jamaica,” Anne-Claire Fontan, a tropical cyclone specialist at the World Meteorological Organization, said at a press briefing in Geneva. “For Jamaica, this will certainly be the storm of the century.”

Heavy rain knocked out power to some residents in Portland, St Thomas, St Andrew, St Elizabeth and Westmoreland, including in popular tourist destinations such as Negril and Treasure Beach.

The parish of Manchester was particularly hard hit, as it faced torrential rain and strong winds as the storm approached.

One resident, Emma Simms, 37, said she had set up a makeshift shelter in a cupboard in her house, where she intended to move with her one-year-old and four-year-old children.

“I tried to make it nice and comfortable. There’s snacks in there, there’s water in there,” she said. “If things look like the house isn’t going to hold up, then I’m just going to go for it. We’re going to stick a mattress on us and keep doing it.” [my children] happy until it passes. Try to make it fun and exciting.

Simms, a data analyst and transport consultant, moved to Jamaica from the UK six years ago and experienced her first Jamaican hurricane when Beryl devastated the country last summer. “I feel like it’s already worse than Beryl and it hasn’t even landed yet,” she said.

“I feel like I have people to protect, like I have to keep myself together. But my stomach feels different than it has the last few days. I can definitely feel the anxiety inside me.”

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said Melissa would be the strongest hurricane in recorded history to directly hit Jamaica.

Landslides were reported ahead of the storm, with Jamaican authorities warning that cleanup and damage assessment would be slow. The storm entered near Sainte-Élisabeth Parish in the south and was expected to exit to the north, forecasters said.

“Total structural failure is possible near central Melissa,” the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

A life-threatening storm surge of up to 4 meters was expected in southern Jamaica, with authorities concerned about the impact on some hospitals along the coast. Health Minister Christopher Tufton said some patients were being moved from the ground floor to the second floor, “and [we] I hope this will be enough for any surge that takes place.”

The storm has already killed seven people in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person is still missing.

Melissa is so unusually strong that the U.S. military said it had moved its forces — likely ships and planes — near the storm to safer areas.

Climatologists said Hurricane Melissa’s intensification – with winds doubling from 70 mph to 230 mph in a single day – is likely a symptom of the rapid warming of the planet’s oceans, part of the human-caused climate crisis.

Leanne Archer, climate extremes research associate at the University of Bristol, said: “There was a perfect storm of conditions that led to the colossal force of Hurricane Melissa: a warm ocean that fueled its rapid intensification over the past few days, but it is also moving slowly, meaning more rain can fall as it crosses land.

“Most of these conditions have been amplified by additional heat in our oceans and atmosphere from climate change. A warmer ocean means more energy, more force; and more moisture in a warmer atmosphere means more rain can fall with higher intensity.”

Last year, the planet’s oceans were the warmest on record, continuing a recent trend of record-breaking marine heat. And a 2023 study found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify, from minor storms to powerful, catastrophic events.

After Jamaica, Melissa is expected to cross Cuba and the Bahamas by Wednesday.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday it would send solar lamps, blankets, inner tents, generators and other items from its logistics center in Barbados to Jamaica as soon as the storm passes the island.

“Many people are at risk of being displaced from their homes and will be in urgent need of shelter and relief,” said Natasha Greaves, IOM Jamaica Acting Manager.