Jamaican officials urged residents to brace for Hurricane Melissa as it tracked toward the island at Category 5 strength, packing intense rains and winds and threatening to cause widespread destruction.

Melissa’s top winds are holding at 175 miles (282 kilometres) per hour, the US National Hurricane Centre said in an advisory at 5 p.m. New York time.

The storm’s winds are likely to cause “total structural failure,” the centre said. That’s especially true for higher-elevation areas exposed to the brunt of the storm, where wind speeds could register as much as 30% stronger. The storm, currently about 140 miles southwest of Kingston, is forecast to dump as much as 40 inches (102 centimetres) of rain across parts of Jamaica.

While wind gusts could fluctuate somewhat in the coming hours, Mel

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