Melissa wreaks havoc in Jamaica/Cuba
On 28 October Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica, bringing heavy rainfall, triggering landslides and flash floods, and inflicting widespread infrastructural damage, before moving on towards Cuba.
Analysis:
Hurricane Melissa was a Category 5 storm, the strongest ever to strike Jamaica, with winds in excess of 185 miles (297km) per hour when it made landfall, and one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. As it bore down on south-western Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned Jamaicans on social media to “exercise every caution”. He also called, in advance, for international natural disaster funds.
The Category 5 storm hit south-western Jamaica near New Hope, in the parish of Westmoreland, Cornwall county, before downgrading to a Category 4 storm (150 miles per hour). In its swift passage across the island it left a trail of destruction in its wake to property and infrastructure in Westmoreland, where the roof of the Savanna La Mar public hospital was torn off, and the parishes of St Elizabeth, where Black River Hospital was flooded and 75 patients had to be evacuated, Clarendon, Manchester, and St James, cutting off electricity to tens of thousands of homes and leaving roads impassable.
After leaving Jamaica, the eye of the hurricane headed towards Cuba, and made landfall in Chivirico, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, last night as a Category 3 Storm (120 miles per hour). In a televised message ahead of its arrival, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the hurricane would be “the strongest ever to hit national territory”. Some 735,000 people in Santiago de Cuba and the provinces of Granma, Guantánamo, Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey have been evacuated or protected, mostly in the homes of relatives and friends but some in shelters.
Looking Ahead: Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, on the other side of the island, emerged relatively unscathed, and its international airport is expected to open on 30 October to receive humanitarian relief supplies. After passing through eastern Cuba, the hurricane should reach south-eastern or central Bahamas later today (29 October), reducing in intensity along the way, before approaching Bermuda the following day. While Haiti was spared the passage of the hurricane, it did get lashed by torrential rainfall, which caused flash flooding and landslides.