Credits: ABS CBN NEWS
Powerful Hurricane Beryl is rapidly approaching Jamaica, bringing with it dangerous winds and sea surges. Residents are preparing for the worst as the storm, which has already claimed seven lives and caused widespread destruction in the Caribbean, bears down on the island.
Beryl, unusually strong for this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, is expected to pass near or over Jamaica by midday as a Category 4 storm, according to meteorologists. The hurricane has set records as the first storm since US National Hurricane Center (NHC) records began to reach Category 4 in June and the earliest to reach Category 5 in July.
Across Jamaica, people are taking precautions by removing boats from the water and securing them to fences, and rushing to stock up on essentials like food, water, and gasoline. As of Wednesday morning, the NHC reported that Beryl was packing maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (235 kph).
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared an island-wide curfew from 6 am to 6 pm to ensure safety. Desmon Brown, manager of the National Stadium in Kingston, emphasized the importance of preparation. “We’re doing the usual, removing all objects that can cause damage,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer newspaper. “We’ve taped up our windows, covered our equipment — including computers, printers, and that sort of thing. Apart from that, it’s mainly concrete, so there’s not much we can do.”
Rain from Beryl’s outer bands began pounding Jamaica overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. The storm’s impact is also being felt further west, with hurricane warnings issued in the Cayman Islands, which Beryl is expected to pass near or over by Wednesday night or early Thursday.
Beryl has already left a trail of death and destruction in its wake. In Grenada, where the storm made landfall on Monday, three people were killed. Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell reported that the island of Carriacou, hit directly by the storm’s eye, has been almost entirely cut off, with severe damage to houses, telecommunications, and fuel facilities. “We’ve had virtually no communication with Carriacou in the last 12 hours except briefly this morning by satellite phone,” Mitchell said at a news conference.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, one person died on the island of Bequia, and in Venezuela, a man was swept away by a flooded river in the northeastern coastal state of Sucre.
The early formation of such a powerful storm is extremely rare. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from early June to late November, and warm ocean temperatures are a critical factor for hurricanes. Currently, North Atlantic waters are between two and five degrees Fahrenheit (1-3 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This warming trend is contributing to the increased intensity and early arrival of hurricanes like Beryl.
