Hurricane Melissa was a catastrophic Category 5 storm that made historic landfall on the island of Jamaica on October 28, 2025, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. It is now recorded as the strongest hurricane to ever strike the island. A key feature of Melissa was its extreme rapid intensification over abnormally warm ocean waters—a phenomenon that climate scientists have linked to human-caused climate change—giving communities little time to prepare for its devastating strength. The slow-moving nature of the hurricane compounded the impact, subjecting areas to prolonged exposure to intense wind, torrential rain, and storm surge. The initial devastation was widespread, with over 77% of Jamaica losing power, major hospitals being damaged, and the Prime Minister declaring the island a disaster area.
The devastating impact of Melissa quickly spread across the northern Caribbean, with significant damage and casualties reported in multiple countries. After striking Jamaica, the storm weakened but still hit Cuba as a major hurricane, causing extensive damage to homes and crops despite massive preventative evacuations of over 735,000 people. Haiti suffered a high number of fatalities, primarily due to catastrophic flash flooding and landslides triggered by days of torrential rainfall, particularly in the town of Petit-Goâve, where a river burst its banks. The storm resulted in dozens of confirmed deaths across the region and an estimated tens of billions of dollars in damage, leaving a massive humanitarian crisis that required an immediate and coordinated international aid response.
Unscrupulous charities will sometimes use disasters as a money grab to raise funds for unrelated causes. CharityWatch does not add just any charity to our disaster alerts. We sort through the marketing fluff of charities to find out what specific aid is being provided to victims before adding an organization to our list. This list will be updated as new information becomes available.
The charities listed below are Top-Rated by CharityWatch for spending at least 75% of their cash budgets on programs; for maintaining fundraising efficiency of $25 or less to raise each $100 in cash donations; and for meeting CharityWatch’s governance & transparency benchmarks.
Donors Beware
Scammers will exploit your feelings of empathy and compassion during times of crisis as a means of siphoning donations away from legitimate charities and into their own pockets. Read CharityWatch’s advice for avoiding charity frauds and scams:
5 Tips For Avoiding Charity Frauds & Scams
10 Tips For Giving In a Crisis
How “Psychic Numbing” Stops Us From Giving
Crowdfunding: The Wild West of Charitable Givin
ATTENTION: The charities listed in this alert were Top-Rated by CharityWatch at the time of
its publication. CharityWatch updates our ratings throughout the year. To see
if a particular charity is currently Top-Rated, please click on its name,
below.