MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica — Local 10 News reporter Aaron Maybin is in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Hurricane Melissa will make landfall Tuesday as a catastrophic Category 5 storm.
Winds were already picking up around 6 a.m. and now conditions are deteriorating by the minute.
After making landfall, Melissa will slice diagonally across the island, entering near St. Elizabeth parish in the south and exiting around St. Ann parish in the north, forecasters said. Shortly after, it is expected to hit Cuba.
Hours before the storm, the Jamaican government said it had done all it could to prepare as it warned of catastrophic damage.
“Montego Bay is as ready as Montego Bay can be,” Mayor Richard Vernon told Local 10 News Monday. “And ready means that our agencies, they are on standby, they are ready, they have mobilized their officers or equipment have been mobilized, and we have done preparation work leading up to this point in time.”
“We have clean drains,” the mayor continued. “We have done our shelter managers training. We actually did our shelter inspections in the June period -- that’s the start of the hurricane season. This is what we do every year, so we are as ready as we can be. We are just now in a wait and see.”
Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council, urged people to seek shelter and stay indoors as the storm crosses the island.
“Jamaica, this is not the time to be brave,” he said.
Melissa is the fifth most intense Atlantic basin hurricane on record by pressure and the strongest to make landfall since Hurricane Dorian in 2019, according to Local 10 hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry.
It is “a worst-case scenario unfolding for Jamaica,” he said.
Landslides, fallen trees and numerous power outages were reported ahead of the storm, with officials in Jamaica cautioning that the cleanup and damage assessment would be slow.
“Total structural failure is possible near the path of Melissa’s center,” the National Hurricane Center said.
“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said. “The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.”
The storm already was blamed for seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
