Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica’s southwestern coast on Tuesday as one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, beginning what forecasters warned could be a slow path of devastation with catastrophic winds, prolonged rains and destructive floods and landslides.
The Category 5 hurricane made landfall at around noon local time with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, just shy of the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record. Fueled by Caribbean water temperatures far warmer than usual, it was more powerful than the peak strength reached by Hurricane Katrina, which pummeled New Orleans in 2005.
Veiled by dense curtains of rain and dangerous winds, the full extent of the storm’s damage may take hours, if not days, to assess. Already, though, residents reported swelling rivers as well as winds peeling the roofs off hospitals, schools and homes.
Hundreds of thousands had lost power, and officials said they were concerned that not enough people had heeded warnings to seek shelter.
“Jamaica, this is not the time to be brave,” Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica’s minister overseeing disaster response, said at a news conference. “Don’t bet against Melissa. It is a bet we cannot win.”
The storm was expected to crawl across Jamaica, leaving a trail of destruction, before moving on to Cuba this week. Melissa is the strongest hurricane so far of the 2025 Atlantic season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30, and is the most powerful to strike Jamaica since record-keeping began in 1851.
Michael Brennan, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said that gusts of 200 miles per hour were possible in the mountains of Jamaica, where officials were particularly concerned about catastrophic landslides and flash flooding in narrow river valleys.
The storm had toppled utility poles and inundated streets on Tuesday in the central parish of Manchester, and some residents were trapped by floodwaters in Alligator Pond, a seaside community, according to a local reporter, Sashana Small.
Some houses were submerged in Mandeville, forcing residents onto roofs, she said. Ms. Small said that she had sought shelter at a local hotel, but water was coming in under the door of her third-floor room.
Officials had anticipated about 50,000 people would move into hundreds of shelters across the island. But on Tuesday morning, only 6,000 people had evacuated to shelters, according to Mr. McKenzie, Jamaica’s minister for local government.
Some Jamaicans said they had chosen to stay home rather than go to shelters because they feared they could be assaulted or find inadequate food, water or bedding. Some said they also wanted to protect their homes from thieves.
Verona Sharma, a resident of Spanish Town, near Kingston, said she had prepared for the storm by placing blocks to hold down her metal roof and filling empty bottles and drums with clean water.
Still, the storm had ripped back part of the roof, she said, and electricity had been flickering on and off throughout the night and early morning. She was relying on two candles she had found lying around the house.
St. Elizabeth Technical High School in southwestern Jamaica, which was damaged by Hurricane Beryl last year, had “severe damage,” the principal, Keith Wellington, told Television Jamaica, a Kingston station.
“Quite a few buildings have lost their roofs — teachers’ cottages, some of the main classrooms,” he said.
The National Hurricane Center warned that winds in Melissa’s eyewall, which encircles the eye, were so powerful that they could cause “total structural failure.” As the storm neared Jamaica, the center urged people in its path to seek shelter, saying it was the “last chance to protect your life.”
About 240,000 people in Jamaica had lost power as of Tuesday morning, mostly in the southern part of the country, where the hurricane made landfall, officials said. Kingston, the capital, was not in the direct path of the storm, but winds were still hammering windows and blowing rain everywhere on Tuesday morning. The streets appeared deserted.
“The real concern at this point is for the southwestern and central parts of the island, especially key agricultural areas that seem likely to bear the brunt of the storm,” Delano Seiveright, Jamaica’s minister of industry, investment and commerce, said in an interview. “The potential damage there could be significant.”
Most hospitals in Jamaica still had power, although those in the southern parishes of Manchester and St. Elizabeth were relying on generators, Daryl Vaz, the country’s energy minister, said on Tuesday morning.
Jamaica’s water agency warned it may be forced to shut down to prevent mud, silt and debris from entering the system. Mr. Vaz said he expected that relief flights would be able to land at the main airport serving Kingston as early as Thursday, once the storm had passed.
A small country that depends on tourism for about a third of its annual revenue, Jamaica has limited resources to prepare for devastating storms, according to disaster and emergency preparedness experts. At least three people died in connection to preparations for the storm, and 13 others were injured, officials said.
Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s information minister, said that about 25,000 tourists were in the country. She added that the authorities were coordinating with hotels to ensure their safety. Cruises that were sailing from Florida had moved their itineraries from Jamaica to the western Caribbean ports of Honduras, Belize and Mexico.
The hurricane was churning over Jamaica at about 8 miles per hour, intensifying fears that it could wreak havoc as it lingered. Its slow pace recalled that of Hurricane Harvey, which stalled over Texas in 2017 and dumped more than 60 inches of rain in some areas, and Hurricane Dorian, which parked over the Bahamas for days, releasing 30 inches of rain.
Forecasters were predicting that Melissa’s rains would be measured in feet, not inches, for Jamaica and other Caribbean nations this week. The storm was the fourth of five Atlantic hurricanes this year to undergo what experts call rapid intensification, an explosive growth in power that is expected to become more common as climate change warms the oceans. The Caribbean waters Melissa traveled over were 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than usual.
Melissa was expected to hit southeastern Cuba early Wednesday as an “extremely dangerous major hurricane,” the National Hurricane Center said. Cuba had urged nearly 900,000 people to evacuate the country’s eastern provinces, and officials there reported that nearly 425,000 had gone to shelters.
Iliana Mendez, 58, an evacuation coordinator for Cuba’s civil defense agency, said in an interview that the primary school near her house was sheltering around 60 people who normally live in remote areas, and had a doctor on site.
The U.S. Navy said it had evacuated about 1,000 nonessential personnel from its base at Guantánamo Bay and had moved eight warships deployed to the Caribbean as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against suspected drug traffickers.
The Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the United Nations, said the storm could cause major public health problems in Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, including disruptions in medical services, water contamination, disease outbreaks and mental health issues.
In Jamaica, a team of nine relief workers spent Monday night at a Food for the Poor warehouse in Spanish Town, preparing emergency packages to be delivered after Melissa passes.
“We know what’s coming,” said Kivette Silvera, the head of a response team for Food for the Poor, a nonprofit, noting how the south coast was lashed by Hurricane Beryl last year.
Reporting was contributed by Camille Williams, Frances Robles, David C. Adams and Sachi Kitajima Mulkey.
Judson Jones is a meteorologist and reporter for The Times who forecasts and covers extreme weather.
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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