Hurricane Melissa has intensified into a category five storm while drawing closer to Jamaica, where forecasters expect it to cause catastrophic flooding, landslides and widespread damage.<\/p>\n
At that strength, it would be the strongest hurricane to hit the island since record-keeping began in 1851.<\/p>\n
The storm has already been blamed for six deaths in the northern Caribbean and is on track to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, local time, before coming ashore in Cuba later in the day and then heading toward the Bahamas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hurricane Melissa could be the worst storm to hit Jamaica in 174 years. (Reuters: Octavio Jones)<\/p>\n
Anticipating the hardship in store for his country, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said: “I have been on my knees in prayer.”<\/p>\n
Category five is the top of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. Storms at that level have sustained winds exceeding 250 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said a storm surge of up to 4 metres was expected along coastal Kingston, which is home to critical infrastructure such as Jamaica’s main international airport and power plants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Large waves are expected to hit Kingston. (Reuters: Octavio Jones)<\/p>\n
“This can become a true humanitarian crisis very quickly, and there is likely going to be the need for a lot of international support,” he said.Some Jamaicans ignore orders to evacuate<\/p>\n
On Monday afternoon, the hurricane was centred about 230 kilometres south-west of Kingston and the system had maximum sustained winds of 280kph.<\/p>\n
It was moving west-northwest at 5kph and would likely bring “catastrophic” winds and storm conditions, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hurricane Melissa has developed into a category five storm. (Reuters: CIRA\/NOAA)<\/p>\n
Parts of eastern Jamaica could see up to 76 centimetres of rain while western Haiti could get 40 centimetres, the hurricane centre said.<\/p>\n
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in flood-prone communities in Jamaica, with buses ferrying people to safe shelter.<\/p>\n
But some people insisted on staying.<\/p>\n
“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 Harbor Bay, where he was born and grew up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some locals in Kingston are preparing for the storm. (Reuters: Octavio Jones)<\/p>\n
Hyacinth White, 49, also said she had no plans to evacuate.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think the storm will damage my house,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My only concern is flooding, because we live near the sea.”<\/p>\n
More than 50,000 customers were without power on Monday. Landslides, fallen trees and downed power lines were reported ahead of the storm hitting.<\/p>\n
“It’s nothing to play with,” Water and Environment Minister Matthew Samuda said.<\/p>\n
“The time for preparation is all but over.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People in Kingston, Jamaica, have been preparing for the hurricane’s arrival. (Reuters: Octavio Jones)<\/p>\n
Jamaican government officials said they were worried that fewer than 1,000 people were in the more than 880 shelters open across the island.<\/p>\n
“It’s way, way below what is required for a category five hurricane,” Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s transport minister, said.<\/p>\n
“Be smart \u2026 If you are not, unfortunately, you will pay the consequences,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa has intensified into a category five storm while drawing closer to Jamaica, where forecasters expect it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,10396,145035,13226,145729,134,133839,145728,18759,17711,427],"class_list":["post-244921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahamas","tag-category-5","tag-cuba","tag-cyclone","tag-entertainment","tag-haiti","tag-hurricane-melissa","tag-jamaica","tag-storm","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}