Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

Hurricane Melissa made landfall early Tuesday afternoon as a Category 5 storm with wind speeds of 185 m.p.h. It is the most powerful storm to ever hit Jamaica. NPR's Eyder Peralta tells us more.

Then, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Mayor Matt Tuerk talks about why he and a bipartisan group of mayors are urging the agriculture secretary to not let the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and other government food assistance programs run out of money during the ongoing government shutdown.

And, on Tuesday, air traffic controllers are missing their first full paycheck because of the government shutdown, but they have to continue working without pay. Capt. Dennis Tajer, with the Allied Pilots Association joins us.

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com.
0:17.0	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:47.3	The key is that we're very resilient people. We don't just fold and collapse because we have a hard time. Jamaicans are praying as they experience one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever. It's Tuesday, October 28th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR Boston.
0:54.8	I'm Shiko Tha Uri.
0:58.2	Today on the show, Democratic and Republican mayors urged the Trump administration to prevent food assistance benefits from running dry this weekend.
1:07.2	It's going to be a very difficult environment for people who are stretching budgets and making tradeoffs just to get food on the table.
1:14.4	And today, air traffic controllers are missing their first full paycheck because of the government shutdown.
1:20.5	You know, we've been through this before. The longer it goes, the worse it gets.
1:25.4	But first, Jamaica is experiencing what the world meteorological organization describes as
1:31.8	the storm of the century.
1:34.1	Jamaicans have endured hurricanes before, but Hurricane Melissa is the first category
1:38.8	five storm to ever hit the island.
1:42.0	Chris Elliott, who lives near the capital of Kingston, described it to NBC
1:45.9	Washington this way. For a category five to make landfall, it's something unprecedented from where
1:52.8	I stand. NPR's Ader Peralta is following the story from Mexico City, and he spoke to Peter
1:58.5	O'Dowd late Tuesday morning. I think the headline here is that this is a monster storm, and that's not an overstatement.
2:06.6	The National Hurricane Center says that its maximum sustained winds are 185 miles per hour.
2:14.0	And a hurricane hunter plane just measured its central pressure at 892 millibars.
2:19.7	And the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm, and just six other Atlantic storms have had a pressure under 900 milligrams.
2:27.9	So what's clear is that Hurricane Melissa will go down in history.
2:32.9	I mean, the only thing that compares in Jamaica is Hurricane
	...

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