1 of 2 | Naval Station Guantanamo Bay evacuated non-essential personnel from the base Saturday ahead of Hurricane Melissa. Photo by U.S. Navy
Oct. 28 (UPI) — The U.S. military has evacuated about 1,000 nonessential residents from the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in anticipation of the powerful Hurricane Melissa advancing through the Caribbean Tuesday.
More than 1,000 non-essential military personnel, along with their families and pets flew to the Naval Air Station Pensacola in the days leading up to the hurricane’s arrival, USNI News reported.
To prepare for the influx of military personnel, Pensacola’s Fleet and Family Support Center opened its Emergency Family Assistance Center on Saturday to connect them with lodging, essential supplies and other resources, according to a Navy press statement. Moving the non-essential personnel to Pensacola will minimize operations during the hurricane and make recovery easier after it passes, according to the statement. .
“The sailors and civilian employees here are dedicated and adaptable, making sure they accomplish our Navy mission -and right now that’s taking care of our Navy family from Guantanamo Bay,” NAS Pensacola Commanding Officer Capt. Chandra Newman said in the statement.
The remaining 3,000 residents of the base moved into temporary shelters in a community gym and a new K-12 school, The New York Times reported. Officials instructed residents to bring their own bedding along with coolers full of enough food and water to last three days, the paper reported.
Hurricane Melissa is the world’s strongest storm seen so far this year. It left at least seven people dead after it made landfall in Jamaica earlier on Tuesday.
Although the center of the storm has passed over Jamaica, the National Hurricane Center warned Tuesday evening of heavy rain “catastrophic flash flooding” and numerous landslides. Melissa is expected to move away from western Jamaica Tuesday evening, late moving to southeastern Cuba “as an extremely dangerous major hurricane,” according to the center.
Melissa is currently a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 145 mph.