CNN
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Hurricane Beryl, now a potentially devastating Category 5 storm, is targeting the coastline of Jamaica after leaving at least one dead and causing devastation across the Caribbean island on Monday.
Beryl, with sustained winds of up to 165 mph, is moving away from the Windward Islands after hitting thousands of homes in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where power and water are still cut off. The storm is expected to bring life-threatening winds and a storm surge to Jamaica by Wednesday afternoon.
The storm continues to break records as it kicks off hurricane season with an unusually early start, becoming the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record and the second Atlantic storm of such intensity recorded in July.
It took just minutes for Hurricane Beryl to hit Grenada on Monday, destroying buildings and cutting power and phone service for nearly all of the island’s residents, according to the Grenada Governor’s Office.
“In 30 minutes, Carriacou was devastated,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday.
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Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said “enormous destruction, pain and suffering” had been caused in neighbouring Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with at least one person reported dead. Parts of the island, including the hospital, were without electricity and some without running water.
Gonsalves said about 90 percent of homes on the country’s Union Island had been damaged or destroyed. Hundreds of homes and several schools, churches and government buildings on St. Vincent were also badly damaged.
“Tomorrow we wake up with determination and conviction to rebuild our lives and the lives of our families,” Gonsalves said Monday night.
Beryl is expected to weaken over the next few days but remain an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” of Category 3 or higher through the middle of the week, the hurricane center said.
The hurricane will continue to pack strong winds, torrential rains, and dangerous waters well beyond its center and extending across much of the Caribbean. Even if Beryl doesn’t make landfall in Jamaica, its outer bands will still be heavily impacted.
•Beryl hits Hispaniola on Tuesday: Severe winds and rain will be felt in Hispaniola as Beryl moves through the Caribbean on Tuesday, with a storm surge of up to 3 feet and 2 to 6 inches of rain possible.
Jamaica braces for severe impacts: A hurricane warning has been issued for Jamaica, and government officials have activated national disaster response protocols. Dangerous storm surges could raise water levels across the island by up to 3 to 5 feet above normal tides. Additionally, 4 to 8 inches of rain is expected on Wednesday, with up to 12 inches in some areas, which could cause flash flooding.
• Grenada’s State of Emergency extended: Grenada’s state of emergency has been extended until July 7 due to the extent of the damage caused by the storm, said Neila K. Etienne, spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office. About 95 percent of the island is without power, she said, and communications are down, with some people without internet access.
•St. Vincent and the Grenadines rush to restore power “Local authorities are working desperately, urgently and intensively to restore power to certain locations tonight,” Prime Minister Gonsalves said Monday. Many trees have fallen on power lines. Still, government buildings reopened on Tuesday and the prime minister urged business owners to resume operations if they can.
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A damaged fishing boat sits on shore following the passage of Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fish Market in Bridgetown, Barbados, on July 1.
• Barbados’ fishing industry hit hard: Barbados escaped the direct hit of the storm, but the storm surge damaged many fishing boats, causing major losses to the country’s fishing industry. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said on Monday that at least 20 boats had sunk. Fishermen in Bridgetown Residents of the fishing estate watched helplessly as powerful waves smashed boats into one another and pulled them into the water, according to CNN affiliate CBC. “There’s nothing we can do but stand and watch the total destruction. Our lives are gone,” one resident told CBC.
• Tropical Storm Warning: A tropical storm warning is in effect from Punta Palenque on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic west to the Haitian border and across Haiti’s southern coast to Anse d’Ainault. Tropical storm force winds are expected to begin in Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday evening.
• Cricket teams and fans left behind: Some cricket fans in Barbados for the T20 World Cup, and the victorious Indian team itself, were unable to leave the island because Grantley Adams International Airport was closed due to Hurricane Beryl. But Mottley said the Indian team was expected to return home on Tuesday after the airport was scheduled to reopen.
Beryl’s rapid strengthening and early arrival are highly unusual for an Atlantic hurricane season and a worrying sign that this season will be far from normal amid a warming world caused by human-induced climate change.
The storm has already broken numerous records: On Sunday it became the first major Atlantic hurricane (defined as Category 3 or higher) in 58 years, and the only one to reach Category 4 in June.
It is also the most powerful hurricane ever to pass through the Southern Windward Islands on the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, according to NOAA data going back to 1851.
Jim Kossin, a hurricane expert and science adviser to the nonprofit First Street Foundation, said hurricanes are able to thrive because ocean temperatures are now as warm as they are during the peak of hurricane season.
“Hurricanes don’t know what month it is, they only know their surroundings,” Kosin told CNN. “Beryl is breaking the June record because she thinks it’s September.”
Kossin added that there is “definitely a human signature” in the ocean heat that is causing Beryl’s unprecedented strengthening.
Forecasters are warning that this season’s hurricane activity is shaping up to be unusually high, with National Weather Service forecasters predicting between 17 and 25 named storms this season, 13 of which could become hurricanes.
CNN’s Abel Alvarado, Brandon Miller, Sahar Akbarzai, Mary Gilbert, Hira Humayun, Robert Shackelford and Isaac Yee Duarte Mendonca and Manveena Suri contributed to this report.
