Hurricane Beryl made landfall on Grenada’s Carriacou Island on Monday as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane, with winds that had increased to 150 mph. Grenada and the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were reeling from a storm that is likely to be the region’s most intense hurricane on record.
“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday.
Beryl shattered records as it strengthened in unusually warm waters. On Sunday, it became the Atlantic’s first storm on record to reach Category 4 intensity in June, and then Monday it surpassed Hurricane Dennis as the strongest Atlantic hurricane to form so early in a year. Its maximum sustained winds reached 150 mph a week earlier than Dennis did during the extreme hurricane season of 2005.
And Beryl is the strongest hurricane to hit the southernmost Windward Islands in about 174 years of record-keeping, meteorologists said. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 had maximum sustained winds of 135 mph when it killed 41 people and caused massive damage across Grenada.
Terence Marryshow, 71, a doctor in southeastern Grenada, said it was difficult to find official government updates on the storm and its damage, due to power outages on the island. Through WhatsApp and Facebook, he learned of at least one death in the St. George’s area of Grenada. A house reportedly collapsed, killing a resident.
“It was really frightening. It evoked memories of Hurricane Ivan, when you saw the trees swaying and you saw the branches starting to break off,” Marryshow said. “But it didn’t last as long as Hurricane Ivan and I don’t think it was as devastating as Hurricane Ivan … from what we’ve been able to gather for now.”
Ron Redhead, a member of Grenada parliament representing the St. George North East area, shared photos and video of Carriacou, showing roofs of homes torn open sitting beside snapped tree.
Grenadian officials were already preparing to start damage assessments and relief work, he added, though he did not expect that to safely begin until late Monday evening.
Officials had warned residents to stay indoors and seek shelter in concrete-lined bathrooms, if possible. Thousands of Grenadians sought refuge in shelters, local media reported.
On Carriacou and neighboring Petite Martinique, also part of Grenada in the southern Lesser Antilles islands, there was no electricity, limited communication and reports of extensive destruction of roofs and damage to buildings, Mitchell said in a live-streamed media briefing. On the island of Grenada, a hospital and police station were among buildings damaged, he said.
It’s still too early to say which landmass is next in line to be struck by Beryl after the Lesser Antilles, but Jamaica, Cuba and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula in particular are at risk. The odds of Beryl entering the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane are low, but not zero, though that possibility would not arise until the weekend. The risk to the United States is very low. The White House said Monday that President Biden and his team are closely monitoring Beryl and are in touch with territory and local officials.
Later this week, a new tropical storm may form that could follow a path similar to Beryl’s, impacting the same islands. The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to remain a busy one. A building La Niña weather pattern will favor conditions that will make it easier for tropical storms and hurricanes to form. Wind shear, or a change of wind speed and/or direction with height, will also be reduced, which means storms will have an easier time developing. That’s why this season looks to be exceptionally active or even hyperactive.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, Grenada, Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, while tropical storm warnings cover St. Lucia, Trinidad and Martinique. By 2 p.m. Eastern time Monday, Beryl had moved about 60 miles east of the Grenadines on a path toward the central Caribbean.
On St. Lucia, tourists breathed a sigh of relief as the storm passed well to the south. Restaurants and spas were closed, and taxis and boats were not running amid breezy and cloudy weather, but no rain, said Ronnie Scott Jr., visiting the island from Memphis.
“It’s kind of a somber mood around here,” the 51-year-old electronics salesman said.
The Windward Islands have recovered from many violent storms. Hurricane Janet in 1955 struck Grenada with 115 mph winds and killed 147 people, according to the University of the West Indies. The storm dumped 15 inches of rain in nine hours and left many people without drinking water.
More recently, Hurricane Tomas around Halloween 2010 brought winds of about 100 mph and killed at least eight people in the Windward Islands before going on to kill 35 more in Haiti, according to the hurricane center. The storm also caused about $336 million of damage in St. Lucia. There was also a significant agricultural impact, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency: About 98 percent of the banana and plantain crop in St. Vincent and the Grenadines was damaged.
Beryl, which intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, took advantage of near-record-warm water temperatures in the mid-80s. Sea surface temperatures are running 3 or 4 degrees above average, which to some extent can be linked to human-caused climate change. The waters are more reminiscent of August than late June or early July.
That intensification is unprecedented for June and rare year-round. It also was able to develop because of a localized minimum in wind shear, meaning there would be nothing to tear it apart.
Beryl may fluctuate in strength into Tuesday. After that, it will continue moving west while gradually weakening.
Jamaica could be fringed by the storm Wednesday. Then it will probably hit Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula south of Cancún on Thursday night or early Friday.
Meanwhile, a disturbance called Invest 96L was located midway between South America and Africa in the middle of the Atlantic’s Main Development Region. As of Monday afternoon, Hurricane Center estimated that it has 50 percent odds of eventual development. It could take a path similar to Beryl’s, affecting the same beleaguered islands as a named storm by late this week.
