HURRICANE MELISSA MAKES HISTORY IN JAMAICA

By  Staff Writer

It’s an entry in the history books that Jamaica could have done without.

This week, the island (population 2.8 million), a little over 300 miles to the southeast of Cayman, was hammered by one of the most intense hurricanes ever recorded.

Hurricane Melissa, packing winds of over 180 miles an hour at times, battered the southwest, west and northwest coast of Jamaica, causing major damage with heavy flooding and torrential rainfall.

The slow-moving storm had idled off southeast Jamaica for a few days, gaining power before smashing into the island.

Already, several deaths have been reported, and hurricane damage is estimated to run into hundreds of millions of dollars according to some unofficial preliminary estimates.

There were initial concerns for the low-lying Cayman earlier in the week, given the storm’s rapid intensification, the threat of storm surge, its slow movement and uncertain track.

At one point, some modelling had it moving more to the west in the direction of Cayman before making a turn to the north.

Fortunately for Cayman, that did not happen, although the islands did experience some periods of inclement weather from the outflows of Hurricane Melissa.

The power and intensity of the massive storm were further confirmed when the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane hunter aircraft monitoring Melissa from aloft, reported gusts of almost 250 miles an hour, causing them to make a hasty exit.

Ahead of Hurricane Melissa making landfall in Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness sounded an ominous warning to his countrymen and women of what was about to befall the island.

“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane,” informed them during a press conference of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (OPDDEM).

But while accepting that eventuality, which turned out to be sage advice, Mr Holness was already looking ahead to the task of rebuilding.

“The question now is the speed of recovery,” he said. “That’s the challenge.”

There was a massive national response in Jamaica to mobilise resources ahead of the storm making landfall, in the expectation that the impact would be catastrophic.

The dangerous hurricane has already entered the record books as one of the strongest to have hit not just Jamaica, but also one of the most severe hurricanes ever recorded anywhere in the Atlantic Basin.

According to the Weather Channel, with maximum winds of 185 mph and barometric pressure as low as 892 millibars, Hurricane Melissa is tied with the Labour Day storm in 1935 for the third most intense Atlantic Basin hurricane of all time based on pressure, and tied for the second strongest storm based on winds, only behind Allen in 1980.

The focus for Jamaica now is on cleaning up, extensive repairs and rebuilding from the devastation inflicted on it by Melissa.

In addition to local efforts, the country has been assured of much external support from many countries and agencies, including the Cayman Islands (home to a large Jamaican community and with which Cayman has longstanding family and historical ties). Support is also pledged from Jamaica’s other Caribbean neighbours and the international community.