Scenes From the Caribbean as Hurricane Melissa Hits

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, bringing lashing waves, powerful 185-mile-per-hour winds and life-threatening flooding to the Caribbean island nation.

The powerful storm, with winds stronger than Hurricane Katrina at its peak, remained catastrophically strong as it spun over the island, carving a slow path toward Cuba, where nearly 900,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.

Melissa is the fourth of this year’s five Atlantic hurricanes to go through what experts describe as a “rapid intensification.”

For people on the islands, recovery and cleanup efforts and damage estimates are just beginning to take shape.

Kingston, Jamaica

Boats washed ashore in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city on the island’s southeastern coast.

Jamaica’s main electricity provider said that a little over a third of its customers were without power on Tuesday morning.

Forecasters issued warnings about destructive winds, rain and floods, and said the rainfall would be measured in feet, not inches.

St. Catherine, Jamaica

The storm’s creeping pace raised fears of flash flooding in narrow river valleys and deadly landslides in Jamaica’s steep, mountainous topography.

Santiago de Cuba

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans had fled their homes by Tuesday morning, according to government figures, as Hurricane Melissa approached.

Residents, including one who carried a woman in his arms, hiked through flooded terrain to safety, carrying as many of their personal belongings as they could.

Men worked to protect a structure by adding roofing ahead of the hurricane.

Lucea, Jamaica

Rain and powerful winds batter Jamaica as Hurricane Melissa makes landfall.

Caribbean Sea

The U.S. Air Force released photographs of a flight into the storm from Monday that captured part of its eyewall.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Floodwaters from Hurricane Melissa swelled several blocks of the Dominican capital.

A woman stood alone in the middle of a flooded street. Heavy rains left areas of the Dominican Republic flooded.