Hurricane Melissa churns to Jamaica with 175 mph winds and catastrophic rains

By JUDSON JONES, NAZANEEN GHAFFAR, FRANCES ROBLES, CAMILLE WILLIAMS and JOVAN JOHNSON

Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica ordered mandatory evacuations in the island nation’s southern parishes as Hurricane Melissa, channeling 175 mph winds and life-threatening rains, began a painstakingly slow turn toward its coast on Monday.

Catastrophic winds, widespread flooding and a potentially devastating storm surge were expected in Jamaica as soon as Monday night, long before the hurricane’s forecast landfall Tuesday morning. Holness urged residents to comply with his evacuation orders, which give the country’s disaster agency the authority to carry out forced evacuations if necessary.

“You have been warned,” Holness said to those in Melissa’s path. “So it’s now up to you to use that information to make the right decisions.”

Forecasters are predicting rains measured in feet, not inches, for Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, and officials on many other islands have also ordered evacuations.

Melissa’s Jamaican landfall is expected around 8 a.m. Tuesday in St. Elizabeth Parish, on the southwestern coast, about 75 miles west of the capital, Kingston. Widespread power outages, disruption of communications and impassable roads are likely, authorities said. Some parts of the country were already cut off by Monday afternoon.

An estimated 50,000 people could be displaced, a local government minister in Jamaica said, out of a national population of some 2.8 million. But by Monday, few had arrived at shelters in St. Elizabeth or another parish expected to be hard-hit, Clarendon.

Most forecast models show Melissa missing the United States. However, eight U.S. Navy warships deployed to the Caribbean as part of a Trump administration campaign targeting drug traffickers have been moved out of its path.

Here’s what to know:

— Tracking the storm: Melissa is locked onto a path that is certain to strike Jamaica and Cuba, and possibly the Bahamas, as an intensely destructive force throughout the next few days.

— Making preparations: Several Cuban provinces are under a hurricane warning and nearly 900,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate the island’s eastern provinces. On Sunday, the U.S. Navy completed the evacuation of about 1,000 nonessential personnel from its base at Guantánamo Bay. About 3,000 people remain at the base.

— Staff shortages: National Weather Service data-gathering and updates continue despite the U.S. government shutdown, because they are considered essential for public safety. But the weather service is already operating at reduced staffing after the Trump administration slashed the number of employees at many of the agencies traditionally responsible for planning for and responding to natural disasters.

— Donations down: The World Food Program has positioned 450 metric tons of food in Haiti in advance of the hurricane — a fraction of the amount that the United Nations agency normally has on standby in a natural disaster there, it said. The agency is financed by donors, many of which have shifted priorities to the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.