Hurricane Melissa threatens to bring catastrophic flooding, landslides to Jamaica, Haiti

Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a major Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, unleashing torrential rain and threatening to bring flash flooding and landslides to the northern Caribbean, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

The center said those impacts could be “life-threatening and catastrophic” for parts of Haiti and Jamaica, especially as Melissa was potentially forecast to intensify further into a Category 5 storm.

The weather agency added that Melissa is likely to reach the southern coast of Jamaica as a major hurricane late Monday or Tuesday morning, and urged people on the island to seek shelter immediately.

“Conditions (in Jamaica) are going to go down rapidly today,” Jamie Rhome, the center’s deputy director, said on Sunday. “Be ready to ride this out for several days.”

Melissa could be the most powerful hurricane to hit Jamaica, CBS News Philadelphia meteorologist Andrew Kozak said Saturday.

“I urge Jamaicans to take this weather threat seriously,” said Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. “Take all measures to protect yourself.”

Melissa was expected to drop torrential rains of up to 30 inches on Jamaica and southern Hispaniola — Haiti and the Dominican Republic — according to the hurricane center. Some areas may see as much as 40 inches of rain.

It also warned that extensive damage to infrastructure, power and communication outages, and the isolation of communities in Jamaica were to be expected.

Melissa should be near or over Cuba by late Tuesday, where it could bring up to 12 inches of rain, before moving toward the Bahamas later Wednesday.

The Cuban government on Saturday afternoon issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Holguin.

Preparations underway

The erratic and slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.

“Unfortunately for places along the projected path of this storm, it is increasingly dire,” Jamie Rhome, the hurricane center’s deputy director, said earlier on Saturday. He said the storm will continue to move slowly for up to four days.

Jamaica’s government said the main airport in Montego Bay, Sangster International Airport, will shut down at midday local time on Sunday as the island’s national emergency agency activated its level 3 emergency protocol ahead of Melissa.

The biggest airport on the island, Norman Manley International Airport in the capital, Kingston, closed at 9 p.m. on Saturday.

“With the slow movement of this system, it doesn’t allow you to recover. It’s going to sit there, pouring water while it’s barely moving and that is a significant challenge that we have to be aware of,” warned Evan Thompson, principal director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica.

“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this hurricane,” Richard Thompson, acting director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, said.

He said all members of the National Response Team are now on full alert.

More than 650 shelters were activated in Jamaica. Officials said warehouses across the island were well-stocked and thousands of food packages were pre-positioned for quick distribution if needed.

Damaged homes, rising water

Haitian authorities said three people had died as a consequence of the hurricane and another five were injured due to a collapsed wall. There were also reports of rising river levels, flooding and a bridge destroyed due to breached riverbanks in Sainte-Suzanne, in the northeast.

“The storm is causing a lot of concern with the way it’s moving,” said Ronald Délice, a Haitian department director of civil protection, as local authorities organized lines to distribute food kits. Many residents are still reluctant to leave their homes.

The storm has damaged nearly 200 homes in the Dominican Republic and knocked out water supply systems, affecting more than half a million customers. It also downed trees and traffic lights, unleashed a couple of small landslides and left more than two dozen communities isolated by floodwaters.

The Bahamas Department of Meteorology said Melissa could bring tropical storm or hurricane conditions to islands in the Southeast and Central Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands by early next week.

Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted an above-normal season with 13 to 18 named storms.