Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

Beryl weak­ened to a trop­i­cal storm as it trav­elled across the Yu­catán Penin­su­la of Mex­i­co yes­ter­day. It had made land­fall there as a Cat­e­go­ry 2 hur­ri­cane that brought de­struc­tive winds and a storm surge to the re­gion. Over the past week, Beryl swept through the east­ern Caribbean, flat­ten­ing the Grenadines.

Then, it brought hur­ri­cane con­di­tions to parts of the Greater An­tilles, in­clud­ing Ja­maica and the Cay­man Is­lands. Pow­er out­ages were re­port­ed in the north­east­ern cor­ner of the Yu­catan Penin­su­la of Mex­i­co where Beryl made the most re­cent land­fall in Quin­tana Roo.

State and fed­er­al au­thor­i­ties were re­mov­ing sand, de­bris, and downed trees from the streets and help­ing dri­vers whose cars were strand­ed on flood­ed roads. Mean­while, of­fi­cials across the Caribbean and Venezuela are still in re­cov­ery mode, with the death toll re­main­ing at 11, as deaths con­tin­ue to be con­firmed by au­thor­i­ties.

Death toll in­creas­es in Ja­maica

Ja­maica has now record­ed two di­rect deaths and one in­di­rect death as­so­ci­at­ed with the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl. Yes­ter­day, the Gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica ex­pressed con­do­lences and sup­port to the fam­i­lies of 20-year-old Al­rick Mon­crieffe and 32-year-old Kay­on Ster­ling, who died as a re­sult of the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl.

Mon­crieffe was swept away while play­ing foot­ball with friends on Wednes­day af­ter he en­tered a gul­ly in Ar­nett Gar­dens, St An­drew to re­trieve the ball, while Ster­ling was killed af­ter a tree limb fell on her dur­ing the hur­ri­cane. By Fri­day night, a third death re­lat­ed to Hur­ri­cane Beryl was con­firmed. An 80-year-old man was in­spect­ing his home in south­ern Man­ches­ter when a wall col­lapsed on him, and he was pro­nounced dead at hos­pi­tal.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with their fam­i­lies dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. Hur­ri­cane Beryl has brought sig­nif­i­cant hard­ship to our na­tion, and any loss of life is a pro­found tragedy,” the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said in a state­ment. Ja­maica, which had a brush with Beryl’s eye­wall on the south­ern coast­line, saw fall­en trees, downed pow­er­lines and pow­er out­ages, blocked roads, flood­ing, and dam­age to crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

Ac­cord­ing to Ja­maica’s Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Emer­gency Man­age­ment (ODPEM), 159 shel­ters re­mained ac­ti­vat­ed, ac­com­mo­dat­ing 970 peo­ple, with just over 450,000 still with­out pow­er as of Wednes­day night. Dig­i­cel said sev­er­al sites re­mained with­out pow­er on the is­land and re­lied on gen­er­a­tors, but on­ly 25 per cent of fixed line and cel­lu­lar ser­vice were im­pact­ed. All health fa­cil­i­ties were op­er­at­ing in emer­gency mode.

Dev­as­ta­tion in SVG, Grena­da

In St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, the con­firmed death toll stands at two, based on con­fir­ma­tion by the coun­try’s po­lice ser­vice.

Dur­ing the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl on Mon­day, 49-year-old Philbert Bowens was in his home in Union Is­land when his roof blew off, and he was struck in the chest by de­bris. He died at the Mil­ton Cato Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal.

The sec­ond death is James Hazell of Be­quia, but the ex­act cause of death is un­known at this time. It has been wide­ly re­port­ed that St Vin­cent and the Grenadines have record­ed three deaths, based on a Reuters re­port.

How­ev­er, the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines po­lice were un­able to con­firm the third death as of press time. Ac­cord­ing to the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), 98 per cent of struc­tures on Union Is­land and Mayreau in the Grenadines were dam­aged or de­stroyed.

The agency said co-or­di­na­tion, trans­porta­tion, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion still re­main chal­lenges near­ly five days af­ter the hur­ri­cane made land­fall at Cat­e­go­ry 4 strength with winds of 150 miles per hour.

Across St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, 1,362 peo­ple are shel­tered in 49 places, with 700 peo­ple now evac­u­at­ed from Union Is­land. CDE­MA said, “There will al­so be some evac­u­a­tion from Mayreau and Can­uoan.”

North­ern Grena­da, as well as its north­ern is­lands, Pe­tite Mar­tinique and Car­ri­a­cou, were se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by Hur­ri­cane Beryl, with one death on main­land Grena­da and two deaths on Car­ri­a­cou.

Ac­cord­ing to CDE­MA, near­ly all struc­tures on Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tite Mar­tinique were dam­aged or de­stroyed, with north­ern Grena­da suf­fer­ing dam­age to homes, agri­cul­ture, and forestry. While 70 per cent of elec­tric­i­ty was re­stored on the main­land, CDE­MA said restora­tion on the small­er is­lands will take weeks as the elec­tri­cal grid will have to be re­built. The air­port in Car­ri­a­cou has been de­stroyed. CDE­MA said while the air­port can re­ceive air­craft, there are no com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Five of the six med­ical fa­cil­i­ties across the tri-is­land state have been dam­aged.

Beryl caus­es dev­as­ta­tion, even on the pe­riph­ery

Mean­while, in north­ern Venezuela, the search con­tin­ued yes­ter­day for five of the eight miss­ing peo­ple swept away by floods as­so­ci­at­ed with Hur­ri­cane Beryl’s out­er bands, with three bod­ies re­cov­ered this past week. Over 25,000 peo­ple were af­fect­ed, with 145 busi­ness­es ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a to­tal loss af­ter the Man­zanares Riv­er swept through the small town of Cumana­coa in Su­cre in north­ern Venezuela.

The Cay­man Is­lands, which were af­fect­ed by the hur­ri­cane from Wednes­day night to Thurs­day, ex­pe­ri­enced more se­vere ef­fects from storm surges and strong winds on the south­ern por­tion of the is­lands. In Bar­ba­dos, which al­so suf­fered strong winds and a storm surge, over 200 fish­ing ves­sels were dam­aged or de­stroyed, im­pact­ing the fish­ing in­dus­try and dam­ag­ing coastal in­fra­struc­ture and prop­er­ties. To­ba­go re­port­ed 236 in­ci­dents of fall­en trees, struc­tur­al dam­age, ma­rine in­ci­dents, pow­er out­ages, and flood­ing, with 35 peo­ple still dis­placed due to sig­nif­i­cant roof dam­age or struc­tur­al dam­age as of Thurs­day evening.

Lat­est on Beryl

Now, Beryl is fore­cast to emerge in the Gulf of Mex­i­co ear­ly to­day and strength­en over the week­end as it tar­gets the Texas coast­line. The Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre has is­sued a Hur­ri­cane Watch and Storm Surge Watch for the Texas coast, from the mouth of the Rio Grande north­ward to Sar­gent.

The Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice of Mex­i­co has is­sued a Hur­ri­cane Watch for the north­east­ern coast of Mex­i­co, from Bar­ra el Mezquital to the mouth of the Rio Grande. Fore­cast­ers said, “Re-in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion is ex­pect­ed once the cen­tre moves back over the Gulf of Mex­i­co, and Beryl is fore­cast to re­gain hur­ri­cane sta­tus on Sun­day,” bring­ing trop­i­cal storm and hur­ri­cane con­di­tions, storm surge, heavy rain­fall, and rough seas to the re­gion.

The 2024 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son has pro­duced three named storms—Al­ber­to, Beryl, and Chris—all of which have made land­fall across Mex­i­co. The peak of the At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son runs from Au­gust through Oc­to­ber. Fore­cast­ers say a hy­per­ac­tive hur­ri­cane sea­son re­mains like­ly, with record warmth in the At­lantic.

On av­er­age, a typ­i­cal At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son pro­duces its first named storm by June 20th, the third named storm by Au­gust 3rd, its first hur­ri­cane by Au­gust 11th, and the first ma­jor hur­ri­cane by Sep­tem­ber 1st. 2024 has sur­passed all of these av­er­age dates, with Beryl, amongst all the oth­er records it has bro­ken, be­com­ing the ear­li­est Cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane on record, beat­ing Hur­ri­cane Emi­ly from 2005 by two weeks.