Excerpt from vox.com
Hurricane Melissa plowed through the Caribbean on Tuesday as an enormous Category 5 storm, knocking out power lines, flooding hospitals, and killing dozens of people in its path.
Already, the damage has been catastrophic. In Haiti, at least 23 people have died, the highest death toll so far, many from flash flooding after the storm caused a river to burst over its banks on the country’s southern coast. And in Jamaica, where the storm made landfall at peak strength on Tuesday, the damage could amount to $22 billion, Accuweather predicted, more than the country’s entire GDP. At least four people were killed in Jamaica as of 5 pm ET on Wednesday.