A couple jokes around on the coast in Kingston, Jamaica, as Hurricane Melissa approaches, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Hurricane Melissa has made landfall on Jamaica as the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean island since records were first kept 174 years ago. It is tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane to ever hit land.

Melissa is a Category 5 storm with sustained wind speeds of 185 mph. It is expected to slice diagonally across the island, entering near St. Elizabeth parish in the south and exiting around St. Ann parish in the north. A life-threatening storm surge of up to 13 feet is expected across southern Jamaica. The storm is expected to make landfall in eastern Cuba late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Officials said there was no more preparation they could do and warned that damage assessment will be slow. The storm has been blamed for at least seven deaths in the Caribbean — three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic.

Here’s the latest:

Beware crocodiles, avoid floodwaters

Officials in Jamaica are warning the public in the capital, Kingston, and surrounding areas to beware of crocodiles and avoid floodwaters.

“Heavy rains and flooding associated with Hurricane Melissa may result in crocodiles being displaced from their natural habitats,” said the island’s South East Regional Health Authority in an official social media post.

It warned people to not try and capture or harm any crocodile “that appears displaced.”

The only species of crocodile in Jamaica is found primarily along the island’s southern coast from St. Thomas to Westmoreland. Smaller populations may be found in Hanover and Trelawny, according to Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency.

China send aid

parcels to Cuba

China’s ambassador to Cuba, posted a video on X showing the transportation of hundreds of boxes of what he called “family kits,” along with pictures of their contents: footwear, toothbrushes, forks, spoons, bowls, umbrellas and thermal blankets, among others.

“The damage is expected to be considerable,” Hua Xin wrote.

The products were pre-positioned in eastern Cuba ahead of the hurricane and were delivered by the Chinese Red Cross to its Cuban counterpart.

Flights cancelled

Flight tracking website FlightAware showed 75% of flights departing from Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport are cancelled today.

In Montego Bay, 91% of flights departing from Sangster International Airport are cancelled.

‘May God have mercy on us’

People in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city with more than one million inhabitants, spent Tuesday frantically preparing for Melissa.

Few people were on the streets, while state television showed Cubans in rural areas rounding up animals and protecting crops.

“This is coming with more power than (Hurricane) Sandy. We’ll see what happens,” Miguel León, 60, told The Associated Press as he recalled one of the most damaging storms to hit the city in 2012.

Diamon Mendoza, 36, did not hide her concern about the unavoidable storm.

“May God have mercy on us, because it’s coming with a lot of strength,” Mendoza said. “Anything can happen.”

‘A beast of a storm’

Experts say Hurricane Melissa’s 185 mph winds and 892 millibars of central pressure on landfall tied two different records for the strongest Atlantic storm upon hitting land.

The pressure measurement — the key one meteorologists use — ties with 1935’s Labor Day hurricane in Florida. And the wind speed ties with that 1935 hurricane and 2019’s Hurricane Dorian. That’s according to hurricane scientists Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University and Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami.

“It’s been a remarkable just a beast of a storm,” Klotzbach told The Associated Press.

Strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall since 2019

Melissa is the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall since Hurricane Dorian made landfall on Abaco Island in the Bahamas in 2019 with 185 mph winds. That’s according to Philip Klotzbach, a Colorado State University hurricane researcher.

Melissa makes

landfall in Jamaica

Hurricane Melissa has made landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, the strongest direct hit to the island in 174 years.

Melissa is the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Jamaica since record-keeping began in 1851. That’s according to Jamaica’s Meteorological Service and other experts.

Thousands

evacuated in Cuba

Authorities in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín prepared to evacuate more than 200,000 people on Tuesday, in addition to a similar number moved to safety from the town of Banes.

Reports on social media and state television showed blue-and-white buses ferrying evacuees to shelter. Families clutched babies and belongings, and elderly people steadied themselves with canes as they disembarked.

“This phenomenon is very dangerous,” Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez said in a statement from Banes, where he was located in what appeared to be a shelter. “It is unprecedented,” he said of Hurricane Melissa.