Hurricane Melissa is now hammering Cuba with its powerful winds and epic rainfall after chasing more than 700,000 people into evacuation shelters. Meanwhile, in Jamaica, we're starting to slowly get fuzzy details about just how bad the damage was, a sign of the situation's severity.

Hurricane Melissa, a powerful and slow-moving storm, wreaked havoc on Jamaica and Cuba as it passed over the islands Tuesday and Wednesday. In Santiago de Cuba, Reinaldo Charon was one of the few people who went outside on Wednesday morning after Hurricane Melissa tore through the eastern part of the island.

Hurricane Melissa was hitting eastern Cuba hard early Wednesday after slamming Jamaica as a Category 5 storm. Maps show its forecast path.

The National Hurricane Center is keeping a close eye on Tropical Storm Melissa, which is expected to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane.

Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to strengthen into a hurricane, threatening the northern Caribbean with massive rainfall and life-threatening flooding

Cuba: Hurricane-force winds are occurring within the warning area, and the eastern part of the country is likely to face life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding with numerous landslides. It is also warning of a dangerous storm surge.

Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to undergo rapid intensification and grow into a powerful Category 4 hurricane by early next week.

Lightning flashes in the eyewall of Category 5 Melissa are a marker of how strong the storm is. It reached a central pressure of 892 millibars, among the lowest ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. It is tied as the third-most intense Atlantic storm with the devastating 1935 Labor Day hurricane.