Hurricane Melissa Inches Toward Jamaica, Cuba Next
HAVANA TIMES – Massive voluntary and obligatory evacuations have been taking place in Jamaica since Sunday, and just as the path of Hurricane Melissa, Cuba is right behind it trying to protect the population.
Matt Sitkowski, Science Editor-in-Chief, The Weather Channel summed up the situation for Havana Times in the early afternoon on Monday:
“Hurricane Melissa remains an extremely powerful and dangerous Category 5 hurricane. It is forecast to make landfall Tuesday morning in Jamaica as the strongest hurricane on record for the island. Catastrophic winds, flooding rains, and storm surge will be life-threatening. Conditions will deteriorate quickly tonight and overnight, with the storm exiting the northern coast of Jamaica later on Tuesday. A weaker, but still powerful Melissa is forecast to cross eastern Cuba late Tuesday into Wednesday morning. The southeast Bahamas and Turks and Caicos would be next, and Melissa is expected to be near Bermuda, still as a hurricane, by Thursday night.”
By 5:00 p.m. ET the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that the center of Melissa at 140 miles (225 Kilometers) SW of Kingston, Jamaica and about 320 miles (515 KM) southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba. It’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 175 MPH (280 KM/H).
The center of Melissa continues to move at a snail’s pace of only 3 MPH (5 KM/H) which is a highly dangerous aspect of the storm. The slow movement means the powerful winds and torrential rains will last considerably longer along its path and outer bands, causing extreme damage.
“Nearly 650,000 people in eastern Cuba must be prepared to be evacuated or protected” in the face of the impact of Hurricane Melissa after it passes Jamaica noted the National Defense Council on Sunday. Attending the Council’s meeting president Miguel Díaz-Canel emphasized that “the fundamental thing is the protection of the population” and ordered “the evacuation of all people who are downstream from dams, micro-dams, and anywhere else that is a flood zone.”
In Cuba, something as simple as plywood to board up windows is not readily available to the population to protect their homes, leading to even greater potential damage. What little that is available is used to board-up government facilities, hotels and companies. Likewise, amid a national housing shortage, many thousands of Cubans are still living in crowded “temporary” shelters after years of waiting for a home after suffering from previous hurricanes.
Food and medicine shortages, except for those with US Dollars, long power outages, little transportation and poorly equipped hospitals are the back drop of a severe crisis even without hurricane Melissa and what it brings.
While Díaz-Canel urged residents to maintain “constant communication” with the authorities, using “all possible means”, such is not easy. Many citizens live almost unaware of what’s coming, after weeks and months of long days without electricity, especially in the eastern region where Melissa will arrive. They are unable to watch television or access other sources of information, noted 14ymedio.
The Cuban Meteorological Institute (Insmet) forecasts the hurricane will make landfall in Cuba on Tuesday night and move from south to north across the country for 12 hours, keeping the entire region on alert.