History-Making Hurricane Slams Jamaica

Hurricane Melissa (the most powerful Atlantic hurricane in history) has made landfall in Jamaica, slamming the coastline near New Hope (a town on the southwestern coast of the Caribbean island) around 1 p.m. Eastern. 

"The central pressure (892 mb) and maximum sustained winds (185 mph) of Melissa are on par with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane at landfall in the Florida Keys," AccuWeather Senior Director of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said. 

U.S. Air Force photo of the eye of the storm, taken yesterday to collect data for the National Hurricane Center.              

The northern edge of Hurricane Melissa’s eye wall, bringing some of its most violent winds, produced flash flooding and storm surges as its pushed onto Jamaica’s coast. The storm’s intensification — with sustained winds stronger than those of Hurricane Katrina at its peak — came with dire warnings from officials. “Jamaica, this is not the time to be brave,” Desmond McKenzie, the minister coordinating disaster response.  Just before landfall, the majority of hospitals in Jamaica continued to have power, while a few others were relying on generators, Daryl Vaz, the country’s minister of energy and transportation, said at a news conference. “There is no plan at this point to shut down the grid,” he added.

Melissa will track directly over Jamaica for the next few hours, bringing catastrophic winds, flooding rain and life-threatening storm surge. Central parts of Jamaica could see as much as 30 inches of rain over the next two days, said Evan Thompson, principal director of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service. A restaurant owner in the village of Alligator Pond on the southwestern coast of Jamaica (75km southeast of where the hurricane made landfall) said the “whole coastline is gone.”