Residents continued to evacuate from their homes in Cuba as Hurricane Melissa battered its way through the Caribbean and was expected to arrive on the island’s shores.

Hurricane Melissa has made landfall on Jamaica as the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean island since records were first kept 174 years ago.

As of 8 p.m., the storm had vastly weakened down to 125 mph maximum sustained winds — a Category 3 as landfall in Cuba becomes imminent.