Category 5 Melissa’s devastating eyewall is coming ashore in Jamaica

By CNN meteorologists Mary Gilbert, Chris Dolce, Briana Waxman and CNN’s Sana Noor Haq, Billy Stockwell, Zoe Sottile, Charlotte Reck and Christian Edwards

(CNN) – Hurricane Melissa now has sustained winds of 180 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, further cementing its status as the most powerful storm on the planet this year.

Melissa has maintained a Category 5 status for 24 hours as it barrels towards Jamaica and Cuba. The storm’s eyewall has started pushing ashore in Jamaica, which is the beginning of the landfall process.

At least three people died in Jamaica as they were preparing for the approaching hurricane, Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton said Monday night.

The category five storm has already been blamed for the deaths of three people in Haiti and one person in the Dominican Republic.

The three deaths in Jamaica happened while trees were being cut down. Two of them died after trees fell on top of them, and one person was electrocuted, the minister said without providing details.

Another 13 people have been injured during preparations. Many of them fell off ladders or rooftops, the minister added. The vice president of US-based non-profit organization United Cajun Navy, Brian Trascher, said conditions are “deteriorating rapidly” as Hurricane Melissa presses in on the island.

“It looks like it’s going to eventually turn back to the north east,” he said, “It’s been very hard to safely pre-position people…like, playing dodge ball,” he added.

Trascher urged residents to brace themselves for the devastation Melissa is likely to bring, adding, “there is no amount of caution they can take that will be too much or overkill…The wind speeds are going to be very traumatic…life threatening.”

“We’re talking about trillions of gallons of water that’s going to be dumped into a mountainous island, and the gravity is going to take that water nowhere but down,” he added.

Only nine Atlantic hurricanes have been stronger than Melissa, though several others have also hit 175-mph strength. Hurricane Allen from 1980 still holds the title as the basin’s strongest storm with 190 mph winds.

Melissa is also one of the strongest hurricanes to ever in the Caribbean Sea, only behind Allen, 2005’s Wilma, 1998’s Mitch, and 1988’s Gilbert. Gilbert was the last major hurricane to directly strike Jamaica.

United Nations staff are preparing to deploy to Cuba and Jamaica this week.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday that it is planning to send in personnel, “as conditions allow, to reinforce coordination and preparedness efforts across the region.”

“OCHA and its partners are supporting authorities ahead of further impact,” the office said in a statement. After Jamaica, Melissa is still expected to be a major hurricane when it roars over eastern Cuba with damaging winds, storm surge, and potentially catastrophic flooding.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.