KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Hurricane Beryl The Category 4 storm raged in Jamaica on Wednesday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain after the powerful Category 4 storm killed at least six people and caused significant damage in the southeastern Caribbean.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Beryl’s eyewall was “brushing the southern coast of Jamaica.”
Torrential rains lashed the island for hours as residents responded to calls from authorities to seek shelter until the storm passed. Power was cut off in much of the capital.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Wednesday afternoon that nearly 500 people had been moved to shelters.
“We make sure they are comfortable and well cared for,” he said in a social media post.
Before Beryl arrived in Kingston, people had boarded up their windows, fishermen had pulled their boats out of the water and workers had taken down roadside billboards to protect them from the strong winds.
Kingston resident Pauline Lynch said she had stocked up on food and water in anticipation of the storm. With winds already blowing strongly, Lynch said, “I have no control over what’s going to happen, so I just have to pray that all Jamaicans are safe and that we don’t suffer any deaths or losses.”
By noon, the winds were already howling in the capital, turning the sea into white waves as Beryl’s eye brushed the island’s southern coast.
“We are very concerned about a wide range of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica,” including storm surge, high winds and flash flooding, said Jon Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist.
Porter called Beryl “the strongest and most dangerous hurricane threat Jamaica has faced, probably, in decades.”
A hurricane warning has been issued for Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Beryl is expected to weaken slightly over the next two days, but is still expected to have major hurricane strength as it passes near or over Jamaica on Wednesday, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports that Jamaica is preparing for Hurricane Beryl with evacuations, curfews and disaster declarations.
Jamaica was in a state of emergency, with the island declared a disaster area hours before Hurricane Beryl hit.
Holness said the disaster zone would remain in effect for the next seven days. He also announced an island-wide curfew between 6am and 6pm on Wednesday.
The security forces “will be fully mobilised to maintain public order and assist in relief efforts. Once the hurricane has passed, the security forces have developed strategic plans to counter any potential threat of looting or other opportunistic crimes,” Holness warned.
An evacuation order has also been issued for communities in Jamaica that are prone to flooding and landslides. Holness urged Jamaicans to leave low-lying areas.
A hurricane warning has been issued for the southern coast of Haiti and the eastern coast of Yucatan. Belize has issued a tropical storm warning extending from its southern border with Mexico to Belize City.
Workers cut down a tree uprooted by Hurricane Beryl in St. James, Barbados, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Monday at the end of the day, Beryl became the first storm to strengthen into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic The storm reached a peak of 270 km/h on Tuesday before weakening to a Category 4, still destructive. As of Wednesday, the storm’s centre was about 100 kilometres west-southwest of Kingston. It was blowing at a maximum of 220 km/h and moving west-northwest at 31 km/h. Hurricane-force winds extended 72 kilometres from the centre.
In Miami, hurricane center director Michael Brennan said in an online briefing that island residents should plan to stay sheltered throughout the day Wednesday, with conditions only beginning to improve overnight.
The southern coast of Jamaica, where Kingston is located, is expected to be hardest hit by Beryl, with coastal water levels reaching 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7 meters) above normal tide levels in some areas.
Heavy rains of 4 to 8 inches, with up to a foot of rain in isolated areas, threatened to cause flash flooding and mudslides on the mountainous island, he said.
Mexico’s Caribbean coast is bracing for Beryl’s arrival on Wednesday. The government has issued a hurricane warning for the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancun.
The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency said Beryl is expected to hit Mexico twice, a rarity. Laura Velázquez said the hurricane is expected to make landfall between Thursday night and Friday morning, along a relatively sparsely populated stretch of Caribbean coast between Tulum and the inland town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Because the coast is largely lagoons and mangroves, there are few resorts or hotels in the area south of Tulum.
The hurricane is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula and re-emerge over the weekend as a storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Velázquez said Beryl is then expected to hit Mexican territory a second time in the Gulf coastal states of Veracruz or Tamaulipas, near the Texas border.
As Beryl moved across the Caribbean Sea, rescue teams from the southeastern islands fanned out to determine the extent of the hurricane’s damage to Carriacou, an island in Grenada.
Three people were killed in Grenada and Carriacou, and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said. Two other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where five people are missing, authorities said. About 25,000 people in that region were also affected by Beryl’s heavy rains.
One death occurred in Grenada after a tree fell on a home, Environment Minister Kerryne James told The Associated Press. She added that Carriacou and Petite Martinique suffered the most damage, with dozens of homes and businesses destroyed in Carriacou.
Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Tuesday there was no electricity, roads were impassable and the possible rise in the death toll “remained a grim reality.”
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has vowed to rebuild the archipelago, noting that 90 percent of homes on Union Island have been destroyed.
The last major hurricane to hit the southeastern Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
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Associated Press journalists Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Coral Murphy Marcos in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.
