Hurricane Beryl, now a potentially catastrophic category 5 storm, poses a threat to Jamaica after leaving at least one person dead and inflicting ruin across entire islands in the Caribbean on Monday.
It took only minutes for Beryl to tear through Grenada on Monday, blasting through buildings and knocking out power and phone service to almost all of the island’s residents, the governor’s office said.
“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday.
The storm is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and impact the Cayman Islands on Thursday, where a hurricane watch has been issued.
The storm continues to smash records as it kicks off an exceptionally early hurricane season as the earliest Category 5 hurricane – and only the second Atlantic storm of such strength to be recorded in July. Beryl’s alarming strengthening has been fed by abnormally warm ocean waters driven by planet-warming fossil fuel pollution.
The storm made landfall on Monday on Carriacou island, part of Grenada, where one person was killed, the BBC reported, and power was cut island-wide. Another person was reportedly killed in St Vincent, though Reuters could not immediately verify either fatality. Parts of the islands, including hospitals, have no electricity, and others are without water.
About 90% of the homes on the nation’s Union Island are damaged or destroyed, Gonsalves said. Hundreds more homes and several schools, churches, and government buildings in St. Vincent also sustained severe damage.
“Tomorrow we get up with our commitment and conviction to rebuild our lives and our families’ lives,” Gonsalves said Monday night.
Though Beryl is likely to fluctuate in strength in the coming days, it is expected to remain an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” – Category 3 or stronger – through mid-week, the hurricane center said.
Across other islands in the eastern Caribbean, residents had boarded up windows, stocked up on food, and fueled up cars ahead of the storm.
Dozens of vessels in the storm’s path risk being affected, with diversions seen in the Caribbean, according to Vortexa, which provides energy-cargo tracking data.
