Maria Alejandra Cardona
KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) – Hurricane Beryl hurtled toward Jamaica as a Category 5 storm on Tuesday after battering smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean, a storm that scientists believe may have been caused by human-caused climate change. The culprit of rapid strengthening.
The unusually early hurricane knocked out power lines and caused flash flooding with its powerful winds. It has claimed the lives of at least two people so far.
According to St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, Beryl is the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season and the earliest storm ever to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which is critical to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Grenadines have been particularly hard hit.
“Hurricanees come and go, leaving tremendous damage,” he said. On Union Island, an island in the Grenadines, 90 per cent of the houses were “severely damaged or destroyed”, he added.
The Prime Minister confirmed one death and said more could be confirmed in the coming days.
On Grenada’s Carriacou Island, another person died Monday due to beryl, which also caused a massive power outage across the island.
The hurricane is currently located about 555 miles (893 kilometers) east-southeast of Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph (257 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Tuesday.
The NHC estimates the giant weather system is moving west-northwest at 22 mph (35 km/h).
“Beryl is expected to move across the Caribbean later this week and remain a powerful hurricane,” according to a release from the National Hurricane Center. A hurricane warning is said to be in effect for Jamaica, where Beryl is expected to make landfall on Wednesday.
In Jamaica, people pulled fishing boats out of the water and tied them up in preparation for the hurricane’s arrival, while others noted there was still time Tuesday morning.
“We in Jamaica don’t take things seriously,” Stamford West said as he showed items secured with plastic tarps.
In Fort-de-France in Martinique, north of St. Vincent, videos shared on social media showed severe flooding in the streets as locals tried to clear the debris.
The National Hurricane Center also issued hurricane warnings for the southern coast of Haiti and the islands of Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.
The hurricane is expected to weaken somewhat late Tuesday, but Berrier is likely to remain a severe hurricane and is expected to bring 4 to 12 inches of rain to Jamaica and southwestern Haiti by late Wednesday, according to the NHC forecast .
Vortexa, which provides energy cargo tracking data, said dozens of ships in the storm’s path were at risk of being affected, with diversions occurring in the Caribbean.
Scientists said the storm’s unusually early onset and rapid intensification was partly due to rising ocean temperatures.
According to scientists polled by Reuters, climate change may have contributed to the early formation of beryl, while also driving the rate at which it intensified, which could provide a disturbing preview of future storms.
Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said global warming has led to record high temperatures in the North Atlantic. He said warmer ocean waters can lead to more evaporation, leading to stronger hurricanes with higher wind speeds.
Andra Garner, a meteorologist at Rowan University, said Beryl upgraded from a Category 1 storm to a Category 4 storm within 10 hours. She added that this marked the fastest intensification ever before September, the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Video from Barbados showed waves crashing against the island’s coast, breaking through pavements, knocking down palm trees and flooding roads in the capital, Bridgetown.
Beryl is also expected to approach Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday night, which is dotted with beach resorts popular with tourists.
