Jamaica is on high alert as Hurricane Beryl closes in. According to forecasts by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), this extremely powerful tropical storm is expected to reach the island nation in the Greater Antilles on Wednesday, July 3. Based in Miami (Florida), this leading meteorological center for hurricane monitoring predicted "devastating hurricane-force winds" in excess of 230 km/h, "near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves" for this island nation of 2.8 million inhabitants, as well as in the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory with a population of 60,000.
"We have 48 hours to prepare," warned Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a televised address on Monday, during which he urged his compatriots to "take the hurricane seriously," adding that it was "not the time to panic." Several hundred foreign nationals evacuated the island on Tuesday, ahead of the closure of its three international airports.
These measures are not excessive: Two days before reaching Jamaica, Beryl devastated several islands in the Lesser Antilles grouping. On Monday morning, the eye of the storm, the center of the most intense zone of the phenomenon, passed through Carriacou, a small island of 10,000 inhabitants that is part of Grenada, a micro-state in the southeast of the Caribbean archipelago. "The situation is grim. There is no power and there is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings on the island. The roads are not passable, and in many instances, they are cut off because of the large quantity of debris strewn all over the streets," said Dickon Mitchell, the prime minister of this small Commonwealth country, during a bleak video message broadcast on Tuesday morning.
Authorities in the region have already reported seven victims: two in Carriacou, one on the island of Grenada, another in the neighboring archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, several islands of which were ravaged, and three in Venezuela. Several people are still missing. Mitchell did not rule out "the possibility that there may be more fatalities remains a grim reality as movement is still highly restricted." Rescue and road-clearing operations were just barely getting underway, in conditions that remained difficult.
With many telecommunications links cut and a large number of service stations and vehicles destroyed, it will likely be several days before an initial assessment of the damage can be made – though it is plain to see. On the island of Saint Lucia, "the wind blew very hard and devastated a lot of banana plantations," reported communications specialist Nelcia Charlemagne, who works for an association of small women farmers, speaking to Le Monde. "The farmers had just recovered from the ravages of tropical storm Bret, in June 2023," she added.
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