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Hurricane Melissa: Jamaica braces for extensive damage as storm to make landfall

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Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of around 280km/h, is closing in on Jamaica. Forecasters have issued warnings of potentially devastating flooding and landslides across the island, which is braced for extensive damage.

The hurricane is due to reach land this morning (28 October 2025), marking the first time in recorded history that a storm of this magnitude has made landfall in Jamaica.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) described Melissa as the strongest hurricane in the world this year, with forecasts warning of possible “total structural failure” in some areas. Rainfall could exceed 100cm in parts of Jamaica, while storm surges of up to 4m above ground level are expected along the southern coast. The storm surges have the potential to threaten the island’s main airport and power facilities in Kingston.

The slow-moving hurricane is advancing north-northeast at roughly 4km/h. Experts caution that its sluggish movement could lead to prolonged downpours and severe flooding. The NHC’s deputy director Jamie Rhome says: “This extreme rainfall potential, owing to the slow motion, is going to create a catastrophic event here for Jamaica.”

The World Meteorological Organisation has described the situation as “catastrophic”. Local government minister Desmond McKenzie says: “Many of these communities will not survive this flooding. Kingston is low, extremely low. No community in Kingston is immune from flooding.”

Prime minister Andrew Holness warned that Jamaica faces “major damage to our road infrastructure, bridges, drains and possibly some damage to ports and airports” and said recovery would demand “far more resources than Jamaica has to recover”. He added: “There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5. The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.”

Holness has ordered evacuations in several vulnerable areas across Kingston, Clarendon, St Catherine, St Andrew and St Elizabeth, urging residents to move to shelters. “You have been warned. It’s now up to you to use that information to make the right decision,” he says.

Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s minister for science, energy, transport and telecommunication, also urged people to respond to the evacuation order. “It’s very difficult, and it has always been a problem because people basically don’t take the event as seriously as they ought to,” he says.

In Port Royal, Roy Brown told Agence France-Presse: “I am not moving. I don’t believe I can run from death,” explaining that poor conditions in government shelters had deterred him from evacuating.

Health minister Christopher Tufton confirmed that three people in Jamaica have died while preparing for the storm, all in accidents involving trees, and 13 others were injured in falls.

Jamaica has activated 881 shelters capable of accommodating more than 20,000 people, according to education minister Dana Morris Dixon, who says: “We’ve been having rain all of October. So the ground is already very saturated. And then to take that much rain means we’re going to have flooding, extensive flooding and landslides in the mountainous areas.”

Once it leaves Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa is expected to move towards eastern Cuba and the Bahamas. Over half a million people have been evacuated from coastal and mountainous regions in eastern Cuba, with shelters housing hundreds of thousands in Santiago de Cuba.

The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands remain under hurricane watch, with tropical storm conditions likely by Wednesday.

The post Hurricane Melissa: Jamaica braces for extensive damage as storm to make landfall appeared first on Marine Industry News.

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