{"id":242067,"date":"2025-10-26T20:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T20:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242067\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T20:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T20:46:08","slug":"hurricane-melissa-strengthens-into-category-4-as-it-approaches-jamaica-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242067\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa strengthens into category 4 as it approaches Jamaica | Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a powerful category 4 hurricane on Sunday, threatening days of catastrophic winds and rain in the northern Caribbean<\/a>, with some residents in vulnerable areas of Jamaica refusing to evacuate.<\/p>\n

Jamaican officials urged those in low-lying and flood-prone areas to seek refuge as Melissa rapidly climbs up the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale<\/a> with the possibility of intensifying to a category 5 storm on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

During a press conference in Kingston on Sunday, Jamaican authorities said both international airports were closed and 881 shelters had been activated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these communities will not survive the flooding,\u201d Desmond McKenzie, minister of local government, said. \u201cKingston is extremely low. No community in Kingston is immune.\u201c<\/p>\n

Authorities said a decision on whether to issue a mandatory evacuation order would be made later in the day.<\/p>\n

Jamaica\u2019s prime minister, Andrew Holness, said earlier: \u201cI urge Jamaicans to take this weather threat seriously. Take all measures to protect yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melissa was centred about 120 miles (195km) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 280 miles south-southwest of Guant\u00e1namo, Cuba<\/a>, on Sunday morning. It had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225km\/h) and was moving west at 5mph, the US national hurricane centre said.<\/p>\n

It was expected to drop torrential rains of up to 760mm (30in) on Jamaica and southern Hispaniola \u2013 Haiti<\/a> and the Dominican Republic \u2013 according to the hurricane centre. Some areas may see as much as 1,010mm of rain.<\/p>\n

The combination of rapid intensification and snail-pace advancement is a recipe for a catastrophic, record-breaking natural disaster, experts said. In its increasingly grim updates, the hurricane centre warned that extensive damage to infrastructure, power and communication outages and the isolation of communities in Jamaica were to be expected.<\/p>\n

Map<\/a><\/p>\n

Some residents in the small fishing village of Port Royal, one of Jamaica\u2019s most exposed and vulnerable communities, refused to heed official advice to leave their homes and take cover in shelters.<\/p>\n

Residents such as Ann Marie Chamberlain, 51, decided to ride out the storm at home. She said villagers were confident they had done everything necessary to avert danger, adding: \u201cFather God will protect us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chamberlain, who is self-employed, said: \u201cWe know danger and we know when we are in danger and right now we are not. All the boats have been pulled up, the roofs with zinc have been battened down \u2026 we are taking the necessary precautions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main reason we refuse to leave Port Royal is because of an experience 21 years ago. We went to the shelter, the first night was fine when it was just us, but then when other people started coming all hell broke loose. Females weren\u2019t safe, and to top it off people stole our stuff. You would go to sleep and when you woke up your radio, money and other belongings [were] gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamaica prepares for Hurricane Melissa, securing small fishing boats in Port Royal, Jamaica. Photograph: Gilbert Bellamy\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Derrick Powell, 42, a marketing manager, echoed her sentiments. He said: \u201cI have never been to a shelter but residents who have been say they will never go back.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is already preparing, we know what it is like. We have heard about Hurricane Charlie. I experienced Gilbert and all the other storms \u2026 We don\u2019t have any gullies or river to burst its banks. If a little water come up it\u2019s maybe a few but by the time the rain ends it disappears.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Melissa leaves Jamaica it is expected to head towards Cuba by late Tuesday, where it could bring up to 300mm of rain, before moving towards the Bahamas late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Cuban government on Saturday issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guant\u00e1namo and Holguin.<\/p>\n

The erratic and slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and one person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.<\/p>\n

Jamie Rhome, the hurricane centre\u2019s deputy director, said: \u201cUnfortunately for places along the projected path of this storm, it is increasingly dire.\u201d He said the storm would continue to move slowly for up to four days.<\/p>\n

In Haiti there were reports of rising river levels, flooding and a bridge destroyed due to breached riverbanks in Sainte-Suzanne, in the north-east.<\/p>\n

Ronald D\u00e9lice, a Haitian department director of civil protection, said: \u201cThe storm is causing a lot of concern with the way it\u2019s moving.\u201d Local authorities have organised lines to distribute food kits. Many residents are still reluctant to leave their homes.<\/p>\n

The storm has damaged nearly 200 homes in the Dominican Republic and knocked out water supply systems, affecting more than half a million people. It also downed trees and traffic lights, set off a series of small landslides and left more than two dozen communities isolated by flood waters.<\/p>\n

The Bahamas department of meteorology said Melissa could bring tropical storm or hurricane conditions to islands in the south-east and central Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands by early next week.<\/p>\n

Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from 1 June to 30 November. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted an above-normal season with 13 to 18 named storms.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press writer Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a powerful category 4 hurricane on Sunday, threatening days of catastrophic winds and rain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-242067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}