The storm made landfall around 7 a.m. near the town of Les Anglais, in western Haiti. The eye of the storm was expected to move near eastern Cuba later on Tuesday and to deliver torrential rains and powerful gusts there. The storm is expected to retain its intensity until at least Wednesday night.

“Haiti is in deep, deep trouble tonight,” Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said on Monday evening. “The potential for Haiti is what I would describe as catastrophic.”

Heavy rains and damaging winds were expected across a number of island nations, including Jamaica and Turks and Caicos. “Life-threatening flash floods and mudslides are likely from this rainfall in southern and northwestern Haiti, the southwestern Dominican Republic, and eastern Cuba,” the hurricane center warned.