At least three people were killed on smaller islands in the northeast Caribbean as a result of Hurricane Beryl’s strong Category 4 storm hurling toward Jamaica on Tuesday.
On Tuesday night, tropical storm conditions were forecast for parts of the southern shores of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to an expert from the US National Hurricane Center ( NHC).
On Wednesday and Thursday, the NHC said,” Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and wind wave to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands”. Both locations are in the hurricane warning zone.
Strong winds on Tuesday evening caught people by surprise in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, where gang violence has persisted for years and a humanitarian crisis is still raging.
The country’s southern island may get 4- 8 ins ( 10- 20 inches ) of weather, with as much as 12 feet in some places, the NHC said. Garry Conille, the new Haitian prime minister, advised people to take steps and remain alert.
The exceedingly early cyclone, which is expected to continue to be a hurricane when it passes close to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands after this year, is expected to continue to be one when it strengthens quickly, according to experts.
Power lines were destroyed and smaller islands were flooded in flash floods as a result of Beryl, the first hurricane to hit the Atlantic in 2024 and the earliest wind to ever pass the highest class on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
According to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, the surprise hit St. Vincent and the Grenadines particularly severely.
” The cyclone has come and gone, and it has left in its midst huge destruction”, he said. On one area in the Grenadines island, Union Island, 90 % of houses had been” seriously damaged or destroyed”, he added.
The primary minister confirmed one dying and said more could be confirmed in the coming days.
In a video presentation on Tuesday, Grenada’s perfect minister, Dickon Mitchell, stressed that Carriacou and Petite Martinique, two of the three islands that make up the land, bore the brunt of the natural disaster.
” The condition is terrible. There is no energy. He cited impassable roads caused by downed power lines and destroyed gas stations, which were crimping supplies, and said that nearly all homes and buildings were destroyed.
According to Mitchell, at least two deaths have been attributable to Beryl’s recent effects.
The hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour ( 241 kph ), is currently located about 360 miles ( 579 km ) east- southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, according to the NHC.
The massive weather system is moving northwest at a rate of 22 mph ( 35 kph ), according to the Miami-based hurricane center.
In Jamaica, gentlemen removed fishing boats from the water and tied them down in time to prepare for the introduction of the hurricane, while another noted that there was still time to prepare on Tuesday night.
” We Jamaicans do n’t take things seriously”, said Standford Pusey, as he showed off items secured with plastic tarps.
A videos shared on social media in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique north of St. Vincent showed extensive flooding in the streets as citizens made an effort to clean dirt.
In addition to Haiti’s southwestern coastline, the NHC also posted a hurricane watch for Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, dotted with beach hotels popular with tourists.
Ahead of the tide’s view expected Thursday evening, Mexico’s defense ministry said the army, air power, and national guard had activated emergency response practices in the three Yucatan says, with 120 homes opened and nearly 4, 900 soldiers on guard on the island.
According to scientists, the storm’s exceedingly early schedule and quick increase are partly attributable to warmer ocean temperatures.
Climate change probably contributed to Beryl’s first creation, while likewise driving how fast it intensified, according to researchers surveyed by Reuters, which could provide an unnerving preview of coming winds.
According to Christopher Rozoff, an ambient scholar at the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research, global warming has contributed to record-breaking peaks in the North Atlantic. The warmer waters lead to more drying, which fuels more powerful storms featuring higher storm velocity, he said.
Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in under 10 days, according to Andra Garner, a Rowan University forecaster. That marked the highest increase always observed before September, when the Atlantic hurricane season was at its height, she continued.
