More than two dozen people have died from flooding in a southern Haitian coastal town as Hurricane Melissa is expected to inflict additional damage on Caribbean islands after making landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday.
Twenty-five people died in Haiti after rain from Hurricane Melissa caused the La Digue river to overflow and flood nearby homes, Petit-Goâve Mayor Jean Bertrand Subrème told The Associated Press.
In Jamaica, 25,000 people are packed into shelters, and at least one death has been recorded. Seventy-seven percent of the island is without power.
In Cuba, which is expected to face additional damage from Melissa on Wednesday, 735,000 people are in shelters. The storm has already caused houses to collapse and roofs to blow off.
A hurricane warning is in effect for the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tumas, as well as the southeastern and central Bahamas and Bermuda. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Haiti, the Cuban province of Camaguey and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Melissa currently has maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour, making it a Category 2 hurricane. The storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, making it one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.
The Evangelical charity organization Samaritan’s Purse, one of several such groups gearing up to provide relief to the storm-battered region, identified Melissa as “the most powerful hurricane ever recorded to hit Jamaica.” Even as the storm has significantly weakened, Caribbean island nations in the path of Melissa face severe threats, including a storm surge of 4 to 7 feet in the southern Bahamas, minor coastal flooding in the Turks and Caicos, the northeast coast of Cuba and the coast of Haiti.
The National Hurricane Center projects “catastrophic flash flooding with numerous landslides” in eastern Cuba while warning that the southern Bahamas could also face flash flooding.
Additional rainfall of 8 to 12 inches is forecast for eastern Cuba and the central Bahamas, while southern Haiti and the west-central portion of the Dominican Republic, along with the eastern tip of Cuba and parts of the central Bahamas, could see 4-6 additional inches of rain.
Between 2 and 4 inches of rain are projected in central and southwestern Haiti, the western Dominican Republic, parts of the central Bahamas and eastern Cuba. Lower rainfall totals of 1-2 inches are projected in the Turks and Caicos, northern Haiti, most of the northern and eastern Dominican Republic and the west central Bahamas.
While 1-2 inches of additional rainfall are expected in southern Jamaica and 2-4 additional inches of precipitation are projected in northern Jamaica, the National Hurricane Center warns that the additional rainfall in the island nation will “bring storm total amounts to 12 to 24 inches, with isolated areas of 30 inches possible over mountainous terrain.”
“Ongoing catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides will continue today and into tonight,” the National Hurricane Center added.
Jamaica is expected to reopen most of its airports on Thursday to accommodate relief organizations seeking to deliver essential supplies to the hard-hit region.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
