Jamaica faces its most powerful hurricane in history as Melissa approaches

#Jamaica #faces #powerful #hurricane #history #Melissa #approaches

Hurricane Melissa strengthened on Monday with sustained winds of 175 mph (282 km/h), a Category 5 storm moving slowly toward Jamaica, threatening to become the strongest hurricane ever to hit the Caribbean island.

As of 2 p.m. (1800 GMT), Melissa was a “catastrophic” storm, the strongest possible on the Sapphire Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The NHC expects Melissa to move over Jamaica late Monday or early Tuesday, cross eastern Cuba the next night and move over the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos by Wednesday.

The storm’s slow movement over unusually tepid Caribbean waters contributed to the size and strength of its balloon, NHC forecasters said, adding that Jamaica had never seen destructive winds and as much as 3 feet of rain.

Melissa’s windspan is currently longer than the length of Jamaica, an island roughly the size of Connecticut and whose main airports sit very close to sea level.

Hours after ordering a mandatory evacuation for parts of southern Jamaica, including the historic town of Port Royal, Prime Minister Andrew Hollins called for foreign aid and warned of damage to farms, homes and infrastructure such as bridges, roads, ports and airports.

Despite the warning, some residents told Reuters they were reluctant to leave their homes for fear of looting, and officials said buses were waiting to fill up and carry around 28,000 people affected by mandatory evacuation orders.

“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand Category 5,” he said.

Hollis said his government is as prepared as possible with a $33 million emergency response budget and insurance and credit provisions slightly larger than those from last year’s devastating Hurricane Barrel.

Beryl was the earliest and fastest Atlantic hurricane on record to reach Category 5, but scientists have warned that storms are becoming stronger and faster as a result of climate change, warming ocean waters and stockpiling fuel for tropical storms.

“Thousands of families are facing wind gusts above 100 mph and days of unrelenting, heavy rain,” said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at EcoWeather, adding that damage to infrastructure could hamper aid arrivals.

“Major slow-moving hurricanes often go down in history as some of the deadliest and most destructive storms on record,” he added. “This is a serious situation in slow motion.”

Jamaica has seen many major hurricanes in the past, including Category 4 Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, but a direct hit by a Category 5 would be unprecedented, said Ivan Thompson of the Jamaica Meteorological Service.

Porter added that Melissa Jamaica’s last major direct hit is moving more slowly than Gilbert, warning that people should prepare to hunker down for the day, and that some communities could be cut off for weeks.

‘We can’t move’

Damien Anderson, a teacher from Hagley Gap, a town in Jamaica’s soaring Blue Mountains, said unpaved roads already cut off his community.

“We can’t move,” Anderson, 47, said. “We are in awe. We have never seen a multi-day event like this before.”

Nearby Haiti and the Dominican Republic have already experienced days of heavy rains that have caused at least four deaths, officials in the island nations said.

In Haiti, more than 3,650 residents moved to temporary shelters in the southern parts of the country, officials said, suspending flights to and from the southern peninsula and banning shipping.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis also ordered evacuations for people in the southern and eastern parts of the island, while much of eastern Cuba sat still ahead of Melissa’s expected landfall.

Cuban authorities said they had evacuated upwards of 500,000 people living in coastal and mountainous areas vulnerable to strong winds and flooding, and canceled schools and transportation in eastern Cuba.

More than 250,000 people were brought to shelters around Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, which is clearly in the crosshairs of the hurricane’s predicted path.