The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment on Wednes­day warned cit­i­zens against drop­ping their guard as a weak­ened Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa moves to­wards the arch­i­pel­ago.

“Even a weak­ened hur­ri­cane re­tains the ca­pac­i­ty to bring se­ri­ous dev­as­ta­tion,” said the Min­is­ter of State with Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Dis­as­ter Risk Man­age­ment, Leon Lundy.

The hur­ri­cane, which lashed Ja­maica as a cat­e­go­ry  5 storm with winds in ex­cess of 180 miles per hour (mph) is now 150 miles south of Cen­tral Ba­hamas with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 110 mph.

Lundy says that peo­ple re­main on alert, warn­ing that the “dan­ger has not passed”.

“I urge you to re­main in­doors and shel­ter in a for­ti­fied lo­ca­tion. The time for move­ment has end­ed. The sys­tem… is now cen­tred over Cu­ba with strong feed­er bands al­ready af­fect­ing por­tions of our south­ern is­lands,” Lundy told Par­lia­ment.

Heavy rain­fall, gusty winds and pow­er dis­rup­tions have been re­port­ed in parts of In­agua, Ack­lins, Crooked Is­land, and Mayagua­na and the Mi­a­mi-based Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre (NHC) said Melis­sa is mov­ing to­ward the north­east near 14 mph.

“A faster north­east­ward mo­tion is ex­pect­ed dur­ing the next few days. On the fore­cast track, the core of Melis­sa is ex­pect­ed to move fur­ther off­shore of East­ern Cu­ba ….move across the south­east­ern or cen­tral Ba­hamas to­day, and pass near or to the west of Bermu­da late Thurs­day and Thurs­day night.”

It said the max­i­mum sus­tained winds are now near 100 mph with high­er gusts.  Some slight strength­en­ing is pos­si­ble to­day in­to to­mor­row with lit­tle change in strength there­after.

The NHC said that hur­ri­cane con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed in the south­east­ern and cen­tral Ba­hamas to­day.

“Over the South­east Ba­hamas, storm to­tal rain­fall of five to 10 inch­es are ex­pect­ed to­day, which will re­sult in ar­eas of flash flood­ing,” it added.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Phillip  Davis, speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, said he want­ed to ac­knowl­edge the de­struc­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa across the re­gion, say­ing, “this pow­er­ful su­per­storm has brought hard­ship to many of our Caribbean broth­ers and sis­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly the peo­ple of Ja­maica and now Cu­ba.

“We ex­tend our sol­i­dar­i­ty to them in their time of need, just as they stood with us in the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Do­ri­an. The Caribbean is a fam­i­ly, and in mo­ments like these, that truth be­comes clear. When one of us hurts, we all feel the pain.”

He told res­i­dents of the south­east­ern Ba­hamas, who are now en­dur­ing the ini­tial im­pacts from the storm, that the gov­ern­ment and the rel­e­vant agen­cies have been mo­bilised to pro­vide re­lief and sup­port, while con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly.

“As Ba­hami­ans, we know the toll these storms can take. Yet we al­so know the re­silience of our peo­ple. We have pre­pared for this mo­ment. And one thing is cer­tain: what­ev­er hap­pens, we will re­build, re­cov­er, and rise again.

“Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa is a stark re­minder that cli­mate change is not a dis­tant threat. It is a present and press­ing re­al­i­ty. We will con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for cli­mate jus­tice on the world stage, de­mand­ing fair fi­nanc­ing, and join­ing with oth­er small is­land states to in­sist that the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty acts with ur­gency, com­pas­sion, and fair­ness,” Prime Min­is­ter Davis added.

NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas, Oct 29, CMC –

CMC/ag/ir/2025