Hurricane Melissa has rapidly strengthened into a major Category 3 with potentially catastrophic consequences, as it dropped torrential rain in the northern Caribbean and threatened disastrous flooding and landslides in Jamaica and southern Haiti.
Forecasters in the United States warned Saturday that the lumbering Melissa is expected to gain strength when making landfall in Jamaica in the coming day or two.
“I urge Jamaicans to take this weather threat seriously,” said Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. “Take all measures to protect yourself.”
Melissa was centred about 200km (125 miles) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 455km (280 miles) west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, late Saturday night.
It had maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometres per hour (115 miles per hour), the hurricane centre said.
Authorities in Jamaica said on Saturday that the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston will be closed. They did not say whether they will close the Sangster airport in Montego Bay, on the western side of the island.
More than 650 shelters were activated in Jamaica. Officials said warehouses across the island were well-stocked and thousands of food packages prepositioned for quick distribution if needed.
Melissa was expected to unleash punishing rains of up to 76 centimetres (30 inches) on Jamaica and southern Hispaniola – Haiti and the Dominican Republic – according to the hurricane centre.
It should be near or over Cuba by the middle of the week. The Cuban government on Saturday afternoon issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Holguin.
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 centre’s deputy director, said earlier on Saturday. He said the storm will continue to move slowly for up to four days.
In Haiti, 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 Delice, a Haitian department director of civil protection, as local authorities organised 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 November 30.
