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Hurricane Melissa

Jamaica Red Cross personnel unloading boxes from a truck.
Photo: Jamaica Red Cross
 

Last updated: February 13, 2026

Category-5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica on October 28, 2025, and is the third strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. It later hit Cuba as a Category-3 hurricane before continuing across the Caribbean and impacting Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and Bermuda.

In Jamaica, Cuba and across the central Caribbean, Hurricane Melissa’s life-threatening rains triggered flash floods in low-lying areas and landslides on higher terrain. Tidal surges caused tsunami-like flooding in low-lying coastal areas, threatening lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure.


How the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is helping people impacted by Hurricane Melissa

Local Red Cross National Societies were on the ground preparing for the hurricane, and have been responding since it made landfall. This includes:

Jamaica Red Cross

  • The Jamaica Red Cross, supported by the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), is working with other local partners to ensure humanitarian aid reaches communities in hard to access areas.
  • Prior to the hurricane, Jamaica Red Cross supported the preparation of emergency shelters across the island. They pre-positioned emergency supplies, including shelter kits, hygiene kits, cleaning kits, tarps, drinking water, and other essential items, to local Red Cross branches and designated shelters before the storm arrives.
  • Jamaica Red Cross continues to distribute emergency supplies and food packages, and provide psychological first aid. They are also helping ensure access to items to support with shelter, such as tarpaulins and toolkits, and providing guidance on how to use them.
  • Red Cross health teams are prioritizing lifesaving prevention and care for health risks that are on the rise in Jamaica. Water-borne illnesses have had severe impacts on people impacted by storms like Melissa, making access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene practices lifesaving priorities.
  • The Jamaica Red Cross, with support of Red Cross partners, is delivering mobile clinical health services, supporting understaffed and damaged health centres and treating patients in severely impacted communities.

Cuban Red Cross

  • The Cuban Red Cross helped with preventive evacuations before the hurricane.
  • They also provided mental health and wellbeing support, and helped families to get back in touch with each other.
  • The Cuban Red Cross has distributed vital relief items to people across Santiago de Cuba, Granma and Holguín. These relief items included mosquito nets, hygiene kits, cooking kits, bedding kits, rechargeable lamps, tarpaulins, emergency toolkits and shelter toolkits.
  • In collaboration with the Swiss Red Cross, the Cuban Red Cross worked to restore and improve access to safe water in impacted communities, as well as a health facility.

Other National Societies responding

  • Haiti Red Cross volunteers worked to send out messages to help families prepare in advance of the storm.
  • Volunteers from the Dominican Red Cross have carried out rescues and preventive evacuations in flood-affected communities and helped evacuate and transfer patients from the local hospital to safer medical centres. 
  • Humanitarian relief items were also pre-positioned, and the Dominican Red Cross has dispatched these supplies to the southern part of the country where needs were expected to be greater.
  • The Bahamas Red Cross is coordinating closely with national authorities to support the management of shelters and ensure evacuees receive essential assistance. 
  • They have provided bedding, hygiene kits, food, water, and medical or assistive items, including wheelchairs and adult care supplies, to people seeking refuge. 
     

How the Canadian Red Cross is supporting the Hurricane Melissa response in the Caribbean

The Canadian Red Cross has a long history of working with our partners in the Americas, including the Jamaica Red Cross, Haiti Red Cross, Cuban Red Cross and Dominican Red Cross. Our support to date for Hurricane Melissa includes:

  • An emergency medical clinic team was mobilized to Jamaica, with support from the Government of Canada and donors. The team has worked closely with the Jamaica Red Cross and Jamaica Ministry of Health to support healthcare facilities in the most impacted areas.
  • Humanitarian experts were sent to Panama, Jamaica and Dominican Republic to support the response alongside the IFRC and local National Societies.
  • More than 18,000 emergency relief items were sent to Jamaica, including menstrual hygiene management kits, hygiene parcels, shelter toolkits, mosquito nets, and a variety of other stocks from the Government of Canada.
  • Funds were provided to IFRC to send emergency relief items stocked in Panama to Cuba and Jamaica.
  • Pre-positioned tarps provided by the Government of Canada helped the Jamaica Red Cross support people impacted faster when the hurricane hit.
  • Pharmaceutical kits, including medical supplies and medication, have been provided by the Canadian Red Cross to help people in Cuba, with support from donors and the Government of Canada.