Hurricane Melissa slammed into the Caribbean island of Jamaica on Tuesday, October 28. It made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest in the country’s history. So far, the storm has caused Jamaica an estimated $22 billion of damage.
The storm brought 185 mph winds and up to 16 feet of storm surge, flooding residential communities with chest-deep water. Melissa is the strongest storm on record since Hurricane Gilbert in 1998. The main difference is that Melissa made landfall at its peak intensity, increasing its destructiveness, while Gilbert made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane.
The southwestern part of Jamaica took the brunt of the impact with roofs ripped off houses, trees uprooted and power lines blown over. The morning after the storm’s arrival, nearly 80% of the island was without power or service. Nearly half of the communities in St. Elizabeth Parish, an area that the storm hit hard, have been unreachable due to washed out roads and scattered debris.
Dead livestock and displaced crocodiles infest flood waters, adding to the danger of traveling throughout the island. The current death toll in Jamaica is 28 people, although officials suspect that many of the dead are buried beneath the rubble of collapsed houses. As more communities become accessible, the death toll is expected to rise significantly. Aid groups have yet to reach the communities hit hardest by the storm, and many worry that residents stranded from the outside world could begin dying of starvation.
Hurricane Melissa also battered other Caribbean islands including Haiti, which experienced severe flooding and a death toll of 30, and Cuba, which received 25 inches of rain despite the storm having weakened to a Category 2.
With global warming and increasing ocean temperatures, hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more powerful than ever before. Feeding off the warming Gulf water, Hurricane Melissa rapidly intensified in wind speed over a brief period, the fourth of five Atlantic storms this year to escalate so drastically.
Hurricane Melissa’s name is likely to be retired due to the catastrophic damage it caused in the Caribbean. It will join the list of infamously powerful and destructive storms whose names will never be used to name another storm, including Katrina, Sandy and Ian. The damage it caused will never be forgotten, nor will the reminder it brings that our planet could drastically change if we continue abusing it.
