At least 30 people are dead and all of Jamaica has been declared a “disaster area” after Hurricane Melissa ripped down power lines and caused widespread flooding across the Caribbean.

Hurricane Melissa is south of Jamaica and is poised to make landfall as a Major Category 4-5 hurricane sometime on Tuesday. The sustained winds are currently at

At first light on Wednesday, the coastal communities of southwestern Jamaica bore the devastation of being in the direct path of Hurricane Melissa.

The director of apostolates for a Jamaica-based religious community serving the poor in Kingston said Oct. 28 that the Category-5 Hurricane Melissa seems to be sparing Kingston the worst of its wrath. But he added that the storm was not yet finished and much remained unknown about the historic hurricane’s impact in the region.

Hours from landfall, Hurricane Melissa is also slow moving like Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which could mean catastrophic flooding.

The US National Hurricane Centre says the category four storm is "extremely dangerous and life-threatening" as it hits the island.

Slow-moving hurricanes and tropical storms can be as dangerous as intense hurricanes, even when they are weaker. A textbook case of this happened in late October 1998.

Hurricane Melissa barreled into Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm with some of the fastest winds and strongest intensities ever recorded. The storm blew through the Caribbean island’s southwestern coast,