Hurricane Melissa's Cat 5 Eyewall Slams Jamaica
In a scene straight out of a nightmare, the monstrous eyewall of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa roared ashore along Jamaica's southern coast this afternoon, battering the island nation with winds gusting up to 180 mph and a storm surge that swallowed entire coastal communities. As the heart of the storm—the eyewall, a ring of the most intense thunderstorms—makes landfall near the parish of St. Elizabeth, officials are bracing for what could be the deadliest hurricane to strike Jamaica in over a century. Early reports indicate widespread devastation, with power outages plunging the island into darkness and emergency services overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis. The Storm's Relentless Approach Hurricane Melissa, which exploded into a Category 5 behemoth just 48 hours ago in the warm waters of the western Caribbean, has been a forecaster's worst-case scenario from the start. Born from a tropical wave off the coast of Central America earlier this month, the storm rapidly inte…
