San Juan Puerto Rico — Hurricane Beryl slammed into the southeastern Caribbean early Monday as a powerful Category 3 storm after previously becoming the first Category 4 storm to form in the Atlantic, fueled by record warm waters.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Tobago and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as thousands of people hunkered down in homes and shelters hoping for the best.
“It’s going to be terrible,” Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said before the storm, urging people to stay home “and wait out this monster.”
The last major hurricane to hit the southeastern Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan almost 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
Beryl was 200 kilometers (125 miles) east-southeast of Granada early Monday. It had maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour and was moving west at 31 kph (20 mph). It was a compact storm, with gale-force winds extending up to 55 kilometers (35 miles) from its center.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for Martinique and Trinidad. A tropical storm warning was issued for Dominica, the entire southern coast of Haiti and from Punta Palenque in western Dominican Republic to the border with Haiti.
Forecasters warned of a potentially deadly storm surge of up to 9 feet (3 meters) in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15 centimeters) of rain for Barbados and nearby islands and possibly 10 inches in some. areas (25 centimeters), especially in Grenada and the Grenadines.
“This is a very dangerous situation,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storm was expected to weaken slightly over the Caribbean Sea on a path that would take it just south of Jamaica and then toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 1.
“It should be emphasized that Beryl is forecast to remain a major hurricane throughout its path through the Caribbean region,” the National Hurricane Center said.
Authorities on some southeastern Caribbean islands announced controlled power outages and warned of water outages ahead of the storm, urging people to seek shelter. They warned of landslides and flash flooding while closing schools, airports and government offices.
Hours before the storm, Barbadian Michael Beckles said he feared the worst for his island despite witnessing people taking it seriously.
“As prepared as we can try to be, there are a lot of things we can’t control,” he said. “The electricity will probably run out. We will have problems with water. “There are many houses that are not prepared for a storm like this.”
Beryl went from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in just 42 hours, a feat accomplished only six other times in the history of Atlantic hurricanes, with September 1 being the earliest date, according to the hurricane expert. Hurricanes Sam Lillo.
It was also the first Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, surpassing Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005.
“This is a dangerous hurricane for the Windward Islands,” said hurricane and storm surge specialist Michael Lowry, who warned that when Beryl makes landfall, “it will be a very serious situation.”
Beryl built up its strength from record warm waters that are now warmer than they would be at the peak of hurricane season in September, he said.
Beryl also marked the easternmost point where a hurricane formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University.
Among those who weathered the storm was Jaswinderpal Parmar of Fresno, California, who had traveled to Barbados to Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, the most important event in cricket. He and his family were now stuck there with dozens of other fans, whose flights were canceled Sunday.
He said it is the first time he has experienced a hurricane, with heavy rain starting at midnight.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” said Parmar, 47. “We were keeping an eye on him.”
He said he and his family have been praying, as well as receiving calls from concerned friends and family from as far away as India.
Even as Beryl moved toward the southeastern Caribbean, government officials warned of a cluster of thunderstorms that mimicked the hurricane’s path and had a 70% chance of developing into a tropical depression.
“There’s always concern when you have back-to-back storms,” Lowry said. “If two storms move over the same area or nearby, the first storm weakens infrastructure, so the secondary system does not need to be as strong to have serious impacts.”
Beryl is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto It made landfall in northeastern Mexico and killed four people.
On Sunday night, a tropical depression near the coastal city of Veracruz in eastern Mexico strengthened into Tropical Storm Chris, the third named storm of the season. It moved inland and the National Hurricane Center early Monday reported heavy rain and flooding, with the possibility of landslides, before the storm dissipated.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for up to 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
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