“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said at a news conference Monday, adding that he could not say “with certainty that no one was injured or killed because of the hurricane.” A curfew was imposed in the country from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Tuesday. Videos obtained by AFP from St. George’s, the capital of Grenada, showed torrential rain and strong winds.
“Catastrophic damage” feared
Earlier the NHC said Beryl was considered extremely dangerous with winds “up to 150 mph” and feared “catastrophic damage” for Grenada. As of 2100 GMT Monday, the hurricane was located just over 125 miles northwest of Grenada.
US President Joe Biden and his team said Monday that they were “closely monitoring the progress of Hurricane Beryl” and working “to ensure the safety of all American citizens in the region.”
Beryl was downgraded to Category 4 on Monday but was downgraded a few hours later to Category 3 on the Saffir-Simson scale, although this does not change its dangerous status. A Category 4 hurricane is considered extremely dangerous because it is accompanied by winds of at least 209 km/h.
First of the season
Beryl is the first hurricane of the season in the Atlantic. A weather event of this scale is extremely rare so early in the hurricane season – which runs from early June to late November in the United States.
“Only five major hurricanes (of force 3 or greater) have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July,” hurricane expert Michael Lowry told X. By becoming the sixth, Beryl is also “the earliest on record this far east.”
Before hitting Grenada, strong winds had swept through Barbados, where gas stations were stormed by motorists stocking up on fuel. Supermarkets and convenience stores were packed with shoppers stocking up on water, food and other necessities. Everywhere, the scene was the same of residents nailing boards to their windows to protect them.
After Beryl’s passage, Barbados appears to have “had a lucky escape,” Home Affairs and Information Minister Wilfred Abrahams said in a video.
As of 2100 GMT Monday, Jamaica was on hurricane watch, according to the NHC bulletin. Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, and the French island of Martinique were on tropical storm alert, as were southern Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Exceptional season
In Martinique, the wind has strengthened since Sunday afternoon, with heavy showers, but not exceptional, according to AFP correspondents on the ground. Some 10,000 customers have been without electricity in Martinique in different municipalities, according to EDF, adding that their teams are mobilized to find solutions to restore power for them.
A state of emergency has been declared on the island of Tobago, the second largest island and a tourist attraction in the Trinidad and Tobago archipelago. All schools remained closed on Monday and “will remain closed until further notice,” the island’s chief executive, Farley Augustine, announced at a press briefing on Sunday. A meeting of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), scheduled for this week on the island, has been postponed.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had predicted an extraordinary season in late May, predicting the possibility of four to seven Category 3 or higher hurricanes.
