Hurricane Melissa leaves trail of destruction across Cuba, Haiti and
Jamaica
[October 30, 2025]
By ARIEL FERNÁNDEZ, ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ, JOHN MYERS JR. and
EVENS SANON
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba (AP) — Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens
dead and caused widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica,
where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture
dominated the landscape Wednesday.
A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica's St.
Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents
swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Wind ripped
off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter.
“I never see anything like this before in all my years living here,”
resident Jennifer Small said.
The extent of the damage from the deadly hurricane was unclear Wednesday
as widespread power outages and dangerous conditions persisted in the
region.
“It is too early for us to say definitively,” said Dana Morris Dixon,
Jamaica’s education minister.
Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with
top winds of 185 mph (295 kph), one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes
on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries
outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating
effects.
At least 25 people have died across Haiti and 18 are missing, Haiti’s
Civil Protection Agency said in a statement Wednesday. Twenty of those
reported dead and 10 of the missing are from a southern coastal town
where flooding collapsed dozens of homes. At least eight are dead in
Jamaica.
In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and
roofs blown off buildings Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction
concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about
735,000 people remained in shelters.
“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon
in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing
out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.
Forecasters expect Melissa, now a Category 2 hurricane, to bring
dangerous winds, flooding and storm surge to the Bahamas overnight into
Thursday.
Jamaica rushes to assess the damage
In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday
after the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily
homeless. Dixon said 77% of the island was without power.
The outages complicated assessing the damage because of “a total
communication blackout” in areas, Richard Thompson, acting director
general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency
Management, told the Nationwide News Network radio station.
“Recovery will take time, but the government is fully mobilized,” Prime
Minister Andrew Holness said in a statement. “Relief supplies are being
prepared, and we are doing everything possible to restore normalcy
quickly.”
Officials in Black River, Jamaica, a southwestern coastal town of
approximately 5,000 people, pleaded for aid at a news conference
Wednesday.
“Catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing,” Mayor
Richard Solomon said.
Solomon said the local rescue infrastructure had been demolished by the
storm. The hospital, police units and emergency services were inundated
by floods and unable to conduct emergency operations.
Jamaican Transportation Minister Daryl Vaz said two of the island’s
airports will reopen Wednesday to relief flights only, with U.N.
agencies and dozens of nonprofits on standby to distribute basic goods.
“The devastation is enormous,” he said. “We need all hands on deck to
recover stronger and to help those in need at this time.”
The United States is sending rescue and response teams to assist in
recovery efforts in the Caribbean, Secretary of State Marco Rubio
announced on X.
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A man wades through floodwaters with his dog and belongings from his
home flooded by Hurricane Melissa in Santiago de Cuba, Wednesday,
Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramón Espinosa)
St. Elizabeth Police Superintendent Coleridge Minto told Nationwide
News Network on Wednesday that authorities have found at least four
bodies in southwest Jamaica. One death was reported in the west when
a tree fell on a baby, state minister Abka Fitz-Henley told
Nationwide News Network.
Before landfall, Melissa had already been blamed for three deaths in
Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic.
Melissa devastates Haitian town
Hurricane Melissa damaged more than 160 homes and destroyed 80
others in the town of Petit-Goâve, where 10 of the 20 people killed
there were children, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Wednesday.
Lawyer Charly Saint-Vil, 30, said he saw bodies lying among the
debris after the storm as he walked the streets of the small coastal
town where he grew up. People screamed as they searched for their
missing children, he said.
“People have lost everything,” Saint-Vil said.
Although the immediate threat of the storm has passed, Saint-Vil
said Petit-Goâve's residents were living in fear about access to
medicine, water and food in the coming days given the political
instability in Haiti.
“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,”
he said.
For now, neighbors are helping one another source necessities and
find places to sleep. Saint-Vil is hosting a number of friends who
lost their homes in his small apartment.
“What I can do, I will do it, but it’s not easy because the
situation is really complicated for everyone,” he said.
Cuba rides out the storm
People in the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba began
clearing debris around the collapsed walls of their homes Wednesday
after Melissa made landfall in the region hours earlier.
“Life is what matters,” Alexis Ramos, a 54-year-old fisherman, said
as he surveyed his destroyed home and shielded himself from the
intermittent rain with a yellow raincoat. “Repairing this costs
money, a lot of money.”
Local media showed images of the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Hospital
with severe damage: glass scattered across the floor, waiting rooms
in ruins and masonry walls crumpled on the ground.
“As soon as conditions allow, we will begin the recovery. We are
ready,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X.
The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which
already has led to prolonged power blackouts along with fuel and
food shortages.
Cuba’s National Institute of Hydraulic Resources reported
accumulated rainfall of 15 inches (38 centimeters) in Charco Redondo
and 14 inches (36 centimeters) in Las Villas Reservoir.
Wednesday night, Melissa had top sustained winds near 100 mph (155
kph) and was moving north-northeast at 21 mph (33 kph) according to
the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was
centered about 105 miles (170 kilometers) east-northeast of the
central Bahamas and about 800 miles (1,285 kilometers) southwest of
Bermuda.
Authorities in the Bahamas were evacuating dozens of people from the
archipelago’s southeast corner ahead of Melissa’s arrival. By late
Thursday, Melissa is expected to pass just west of Bermuda.
___
Rodríguez reported from Havana, Myers from Santa Cruz, Jamaica, and
Sanon from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto
Rico, and Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this
report.
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