“Melissa is expected to remain a powerful hurricane when it moves across Cuba and the Bahamas and passes near Bermuda,” the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
AP reports hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated to shelters in Cuba. A hurricane warning was in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas.
Meanwhile Jamaicans left their shelters and began the task of cleaning up flood damage amongst the many challenges ahead.
Flooding Devastates Jamaica as Massive Hurricane Melissa Arrives
Melissa struck Jamaica on Tuesday with top sustained winds of around 220 mph.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the island a “disaster area” and authorities warned residents to remain sheltered over continued flooding and landslide risk, as dangerous weather persisted even as the hurricane’s worst moved on.
The scale of Melissa’s damage in Jamaica wasn’t yet clear, as a comprehensive assessment could take days and much of the island was still without power, with communications networks badly disrupted, AFP reports.
Government minister Desmond McKenzie said several hospitals had been damaged, including in the hard-hit southwestern district of Saint Elizabeth, a coastal area he said was “underwater.”
“The damage to Saint Elizabeth is extensive, based on what we have seen,” he told a briefing.
A woman walks in a street before Hurricane Melissa hits the city of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba on October 28, 2025. ( YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty)
“Saint Elizabeth is the bread basket of the country, and that has taken a beating. The entire Jamaica has felt the brunt of Melissa.”
The hurricane was the worst to ever strike Jamaica, hitting land with maximum wind speeds even more potent than most of recent history’s most brutal storms, including 2005’s Katrina, which ravaged the US city of New Orleans.
Meanwhile the storm was forecast to cross through Cuba during the morning and head to the Bahamas later in the day, with continuing intense rain that could cause dangerous flooding and landslides, U.S. forecasters said.
The storm already was blamed for seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.
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