…as windspeed drops but storm remains dangerous
Alarming video clips are beginning to appear on social media from residents in Jamaica purporting to show flooding and destruction following the arrival of Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday.
The X account of the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper posted footage of what it said was a roof completely torn from the Savanna La Mar hospital in Westmoreland parish, close to where Melissa’s eyewall made landfall.
Posts by residents of Jamaica were equally dramatic. One reported “intense footage from inside the Black River hospital” It shows downed power lines and heavy rain and items being blown around outside the facility, while medical staff in white coats deal with debris inside.
Another shows flooding coursing down a road said to be in Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth parish, in Jamaica’s mountainous interior.
READ ALSO: Tourist plane crash in Kenya kills 11 on board
An interim advisory issued by the Miami-based center just now couldn’t have been more stark: “Catastrophic winds, flash flooding, and storm surge ongoing in Jamaica,” it said.
“This is an extremely dangerous and life-threating situation.”
If there is any consolation, it looks like the storm, the center of which is currently about 10 miles south of Montego Bay, has weakened further to a category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds dropping to 150mph.
