Hurricane Beryl was moving rapidly west toward Jamaica as a Category 5 storm early Tuesday, hours after it wreaked havoc across the southeastern Caribbean and killed at least two people, officials said.
Beryl strengthen into a category 5 storm late Monday, meaning it had maximum sustained winds of at least 157 mph. It is expected to continue moving through the Caribbean, reaching Jamaica with potential hurricane conditions on Wednesday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Major hurricanes have sustained winds of 111 mph or higher on a five-point scale developed in the 1970s. No Atlantic hurricane has ever reached Category 5 strength this early in the season, by Philip Klotzbacha meteorologist at Colorado State University, specializing in tropical cyclones.
Hurricane Beryl swept through several Caribbean islands on Monday, with two deaths later reported in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The storm made landfall on Carriacou, a small island north of Grenada, on Monday morning and “flattened” the island in just half an hour, Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said in a news conference broadcast on social media. Government officials also expected “extreme” damage on the neighboring island of Petite Martinique.
One death was reported in Grenada’s capital, St. George’s, after a tree fell on a home. “This is shocking,” Mitchell said. “The person who died was actually a relative of one of the people who spent the last 36 hours with us at the National Emergency Operations Center.”
Just north of Carriacou, several islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines also suffered “massive destruction,” Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a social media briefing. One person died and hundreds of homes, schools and churches were severely damaged, he said.
An estimated 90 percent of homes on Union Island were severely damaged or destroyed, and similar levels of devastation were expected on Mayreau and Canouan islands, Gonsalves said.
Beryl, the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, left a trail of destruction in its path as it made landfall: trees snapped in half, storm surges and roofs blown off homes as it made landfall. Winds reach speeds of over 150 miles per hour.
In Grenada, the full extent of the damage in Carriacou and Petite Martinique will not be clear until Tuesday morning, said Prime Minister Mitchell, adding that he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it was safe to do so. Officials said there was no power in Carriacou and Petite Martinique, and communications were difficult.
Initial reports of damage also emerged in the capital as the storm passed over the island. The roof of a police station was blown off and a hospital had to evacuate patients to a lower floor after its roof was damaged.
Beryl is an unusual phenomenon in an already unusually busy hurricane season that runs through late November. When it developed into a Category 4 storm on Sunday, it was the third-largest ever storm in the Atlantic in June — and the first time a Category 4 storm has appeared so early in the season.
The storm was also historic in the short time it lasted. to intensify from a tropical depression into a major hurricane — 42 hours — was a direct result of above-average sea surface temperatures. The rapid escalation is a feat recorded only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history.
Officials in Barbados said Monday that the island had been spared the worst of Hurricane Beryl.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a national broadcast from the island’s emergency operations center that up to 20 fishing boats, including two popular cruise ships, may have sunk. But, she added, “It could have been a lot worse for us.”
So far, about 40 homes have suffered roof or structural damage, Mottley said, although that number is expected to rise as more than 400 residents have returned home from shelters.
People across the Eastern Caribbean began preparing for the storm over the weekend, including those shopping for last-minute necessities.
“Hurricane is not something we take lightly as a family,” said Fleur Mathurin, who lives in St. Lucia, where some areas of the island are without power. “My family, my grandmother, my great-grandchildren, have been through Allen and Gilbert, this is something they always preach to us.”
Julius Gittens contributed reporting from Christ Church, Barbados; Linda Straker from Gouyave, Grenada; Kenton X. Chance from Kingstown, St. Vincent; Sharefil Gaillard from Gros Islet, St. Lucia; Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City; and Yan Zhuang from Seoul.
