Black River on Wednesday was unrecognizable to people there: The coastline was strewed with massive boulders, and a cellphone tower had twisted into a semicircle.

“Only places that have four concrete walls are still standing, and usually their roofs are gone,” said Amiri Bradley, who frequently visits the port town.

Black River, the capital of St. Elizabeth Parish on Jamaica’s southwestern coast, has long been known as the spot where the Black River meets the sea, once a key port where enslaved people packed sugar and rum onto ships. It later became a beloved spot for crocodile safaris or calm holidays at the Waterloo Guest House, which is said to have been the first private home in Jamaica lit by electricity.

That hotel, along with the town’s courthouse, library, churches and other historical buildings, has now been reduced to rubble by Hurricane Melissa, according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica, who took an aerial tour of the coast on Wednesday and said that Black River “has literally been totally destroyed.”

The hurricane came ashore Jamaica packing 185 m.p.h. winds on Tuesday, the island’s strongest storm on record. It hit a stretch of coast still recovering from Hurricane Beryl, which passed offshore as a Category 4 storm last year.

By Wednesday afternoon, five bodies had been found in St. Elizabeth Parish, including at least two in Black River. The town’s mayor, Richard Solomon, struggled to describe the extent of the damage.