Conditions were rapidly deteriorating in Jamaica as Hurricane Melissa pummeled the island with heavy rain and tropical storm conditions ahead of landfall as the strongest hurricane in Jamaica's recorded history Tuesday.

The Category 5 storm will unleash catastrophic flash flooding, landslides and damaging winds as it reaches landfall around noon, forecasters with the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, widespread infrastructure damage, outages and community isolation were extremely likely and there may be total degradation of structures near Melissa's centers.

Life-threatening storm surge and waves were also expected across the southern coast.

"Failure to act may result in serious injury or loss of life," National Hurricane Center forecaster Brad Reinhart sa

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