‘We’re witnessing satellite history’: World’s biggest storm this year could bring crisis

Kingston, Jamaica: Hurricane Melissa intensified into a Category 5 storm on Tuesday as it drew closer to Jamaica, where forecasters expect it to unleash catastrophic flooding, landslides and widespread damage.

Melissa is now this year’s strongest recorded storm, according to CNN. Maximum sustained winds of 281 km/h and stronger gusts have been recorded, meteorologist Chris Dolce said, citing the US National Hurricane Centre.

Such wind speeds are likely to cause “total structural failure,” the centre warned, with upland areas particularly at-risk due to gusts potentially 30 per cent stronger.

The storm, which was about 225 kilometres south-west of Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, on Tuesday AEDT, is forecast to dump more than a metre of rain in places, and could be the most powerful to hit the island since records began in 1851.

Blamed for six deaths in the northern Caribbean as it headed toward the island, Melissa is expected to make landfall in Jamaica late on Tuesday AEDT, before coming ashore in Cuba and then heading toward the Bahamas.

“I have been on my knees in prayer,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said.

Category 5 is the top of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, where sustained winds exceed 250km/h. The storm was moving north-north-east towards Jamaica at about 3 km/h, according to the Hurricane Centre.

A storm surge of up to four metres was expected along the coastline near Kingston, which Porter said was home to critical infrastructure, including Jamaica’s main international airport and power plants.

“This can become a true humanitarian crisis very quickly, and there is likely going to be the need for a lot of international support,” Porter said.

The Washington Post reported that satellite intensity estimates for Melissa on Sunday jumped off the charts – provisionally reaching never-before-observed wind speeds of almost 306km/h in the Atlantic basin. Hurricane-hunter observations were lower than those predictions, but their mission didn’t coincide with the satellite-estimated peak.

“We’re witnessing satellite history in the Atlantic,” meteorologist Michael Lowry wrote.

Parts of eastern Jamaica could receive more than 750 millimetres of rain while western Haiti could get 400mm, the hurricane centre said, citing the likelihood of “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides”.

A storm of Category 4 or higher has not made landfall in Jamaica in 174 years of record-keeping.

Hurricane Gilbert was a Category 3 storm when it hit the island in 1988. Hurricanes Ivan and Beryl were both Category 4, but they did not make landfall, said Evan Thompson, principal director at Jamaica’s meteorological service

Mandatory evacuations were ordered in flood-prone communities in Jamaica, with buses ferrying people to safe shelter.

Jamaican government officials said they were worried that fewer than 1000 people were in the more than 880 shelters open across the island.

“It’s way, way below what is required for a Category 5 hurricane,” said Jamaican Transport Minister Daryl Vaz, who urged people “to be smart ... If you are not, unfortunately, you will pay the consequences”.

But some insisted on staying. “I hear what they say, but I am not leaving,” said Noel Francis, a 64-year-old fisherman who lives on the beach in the southern town of Old Harbour Bay, where he was born and grew up. “I can manage myself.”

Several towns along Jamaica’s southern coast already reported power outages as winds picked up throughout the night.

“I don’t think the storm will damage my house. My only concern is flooding because we live near the sea,” said Hyacinth White, 49, who also said she had no plans to evacuate to a shelter.

Officials said the biggest storm surge was expected in the Black River community in western Jamaica, where Sandra Walker was the sole street vendor working just hours ahead of the hurricane.

“I have no choice but to be here,” she said as she sorted potatoes, green bananas, tomatoes and scallion stalks in her stall.

Walker, a single mother of two, is still struggling to recover after Hurricane Beryl destroyed her business and home last year. She lives by the ocean but does not plan to go to a shelter because she had a “terrible” experience at a shelter during Hurricane Ivan, when the facility offered only a handful of tins of corned beef to share.

The slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing. Two people died in Jamaica over the weekend as they cut trees ahead of the storm.

“It’s nothing to play with,” Jamaican Water and Environment Minister Matthew Samuda said. “The time for preparation is all but over.”

More than 50,000 customers were without power. Landslides, fallen trees and downed power lines were reported ahead of the storm.

In eastern Cuba, a hurricane warning was in effect for Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Holguin provinces, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Las Tunas. More than 500 millimetres of rain were forecast for parts of Cuba, along with a significant storm surge along the coast.

Cuban officials said they would evacuate more than 600,000 people from the region, including Santiago, the island’s second-largest city.

AP, Bloomberg

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