Bridgetown, Barbados.- Hurricane Beryl shattered doors, roofs and windows as it barreled through the southeastern Caribbean on Monday after making landfall on Grenada’s Carriacou island, the earliest Category 4 storm of the Atlantic season to form, where it was fueled by historically warm waters.
There are no reports of deaths or injuries so far, but communications have been severely affected throughout the region.
Streets on the island of St Lucia south of Grenada were littered with shoes, trees, downed wires and other debris scattered by winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), just shy of a Category 5 cyclone. The storm snapped banana trees in half and killed cows, which lay sleeping in pastures near where flimsy tin homes tottered.
“I’m just really heartbroken right now,” said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed the damage to her store in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, which was filled with water and sand. Beryl was moving through the southeastern Caribbean on Monday night, as it began to move out into the Caribbean Sea on a path that would take it just south of Jamaica and then toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, expected as a Category 1 storm by Thursday afternoon.
Beryl’s winds accelerated to 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph) on Monday night, on the verge of reaching Category 5 status.
Beryl was centered 575 miles (925 kilometers) east-southeast of Beata Island in the Dominican Republic and was moving west-northwest at 21 mph (33 kph). Jamaica could reach hurricane conditions by Wednesday.
A hurricane watch has been issued for Jamaica, and a tropical storm warning is in effect for the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane as it moves through the eastern Caribbean,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The last hurricane of this magnitude to hit the southeastern Caribbean was Ivan, which claimed the lives of dozens of people in Grenada 20 years ago.
Authorities received “reports of devastation” from Carriacou and neighbouring islands on Monday afternoon, said Terence Walters, Grenada’s national disaster coordinator. Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said he would move to Carriacou as soon as conditions allowed, noting there was an “extensive” storm surge.
Authorities in Granada had to evacuate patients to lower floors after the roof of a hospital was badly damaged, he added.
“There is a possibility that the damage could be even greater,” he told reporters. “We have no choice but to continue praying.”
In Barbados, Minister of National Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams said drones would be used to assess damage in the wake of Beryl.
Beryl strengthened from a tropical depression to a Category 3 hurricane in just 42 hours, something that had only happened six times in Atlantic hurricane records and is the first to do so before Sept. 1, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.
It is also the earliest Category 4 hurricane to form in the Atlantic this season, surpassing Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005.
Beryl is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. A few weeks ago, Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in northeastern Mexico, leaving four dead.
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