Jamaican officials issued dire warnings Saturday as Hurricane Melissa barrels toward the island, poised to become the strongest storm ever recorded there.
“Do not take this lightly,” said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s minister of science, energy, telecommunications and transport. “Do not make foolish decisions. Do not make stupid decisions like coming out into the middle of the storm to see what’s happening.”
Melissa is expected to quickly intensify throughout the weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center.
All airports in Jamaica will close at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Vaz announced. The last flight of the day will still be allowed to land if delayed, but all flights after that will be suspended until further notice.
A gas pump is wrapped in plastic at a Texaco station in Kingston, Jamaica, on Oct. 25 ahead of Hurricane Melissa.Octavio Jones / Reuters
Melissa is forecast to reach Category 4 strength when it moves through Jamaica — making it the strongest recorded storm to ever pass over the country, according to Evan Thompson, the principal director of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service.
“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this storm,” he said.
The storm will bring “20 to 30 inches of rain,” National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said at a morning briefing. He called Melissa a “very concerning situation.”
People walk past pruned tree branches ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Melissa in Santiago de Cuba on Oct. 25.Stringer / AFP – Getty Images
“If you’ve got friends and family, if you got someone down there on vacation, it’s imperative that you get in touch with them, make sure that they are aware and tracking this situation and taking necessary precautions,” Rhome said.
About 90 residents have evacuated from Saona Island, off the southeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, as a precaution due to the storm, The country’s Civil Defense agency announced on Facebook Saturday.
The Guantanamo Province’s government has ordered the evacuation of 145,000 people in eastern Cuba.
In Haiti, Melissa has already injured 15 and has claimed the lives of at least three people. The Haitian Civil Protection Agency said that two people died Thursday in a landslide near Port-au-Prince and an elderly man was killed by a falling tree in Marigot.
The storm was moving slowly west-northwest at 1 mph, about 145 miles southeast of Kingston as of 2 p.m. ET Saturday.
The hurricane center warned of “life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides” across Jamaica and southern Hispaniola through the weekend. In the Dominican Republic, more than 500,000 people have already lost water service amid downed trees and traffic disruptions.