Hurricane Beryl approaches Jamaica as it sweeps through the CaribbeanExBulletin

Hurricane Beryl is barreling toward Jamaica as a Category 4 storm after carving a path of destruction across several southeastern Caribbean islands.

of National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Wednesday morning that Beryl is expected to move rapidly through the central Caribbean Sea and pass near or over Jamaica later today.

He warns that hurricane conditions are expected to reach the coast of Jamaica around noon and that strong winds starting in the morning will make outdoor preparations difficult.

Beryl, with its maximum sustained winds near 145 miles per hour, remains dangerous despite being downgraded from a Category 5 on Tuesday. According to Associated Press.

The good news is that Beryl is starting to weaken a bit, NHC Director Michael Brennan said late. Tuesday video update. But those maximum winds will drop very slowly over the next couple of days and still expect Beryl to be a powerful major hurricane when it reaches Jamaica.

The NHC warns that Beryl could drop four to eight inches and in some places as much as a foot of rain across Jamaica by Wednesday evening, and that the storm could raise water levels up to 9 feet above normal tide levels.

All three Jamaica international airports ARE closed on Wednesdayand officials say electricity and water service to the islands is likelyshut down as a precaution to prevent fires and protect equipment.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared one area of ​​major disasters and implemented one island-wide curfew from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time, based on what he called the strength, path and potential threat posed by Beryl.

This is to ensure everyone's safety during the storm's passage and to prevent any movement with the intention of carrying out criminal activity, Holness said in an Instagram video.

The NHC has a hurricane warning in place for Jamaica and all three Cayman Islands, where the storm's center is expected to pass late Wednesday or early Thursday before moving over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Friday.

Jamaica's size at about 146 miles long and 51 miles at its widest point makes it an unlikely target for a direct hit from a hurricane. only two hurricanes have made landfall in the last 40 years, CNN notes: Sandy in 2012 and Gilbert in 1988.

Caribbean islands are surveying widespread damage

Beryl has already wreaked havoc in several locations in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Photos emerging from the hardest hit islands show the roofs torn off the buildingsfishing boats torn and streets flooded with water and sand.

Some of the worst damage appears to have occurred on Carriacou and Petite Martinique, two small islands in Grenada.

Officials said about 98% of buildings on the islands, home to about 6,000 people, had been damaged or destroyed, including the main health facility in Carriacous, according to New York Times. Three storm-related fatalities have been confirmed there so far. according to AP.

The possibility of more casualties remains a grim reality as movement is still severely restricted, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a news conference on Tuesday.

Two other deaths were reported in the northern Venezuelan state of Sucre, where authorities said another five people are missing and a total of 25,000 have been affected by heavy rains, winds and river flooding from the storm's outer bands.

Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was injured after being hit by a falling tree while visiting one of the affected cities. reports CNN.

The country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was also hit hard, with Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves announcing at a press conference that 90% of the houses on Union Island, which is about 3 miles long and home to about 3,000 people, were damaged or destroyed. .

The roof of the Union Island airport is gone, Gonsalves said, according to CBS News. It's not anymore.

As damage assessment and recovery efforts take place, offers of help are also pouring in.

President Biden said in a Press conference on Tuesday that the people on the affected islands and communities are in our prayers and we stand by to offer assistance to them.

Non-profit organization based in Washington, DC World Central Kitchen also announced on Tuesday that there are teams mobilizing to distribute food starting with sandwiches to people in need throughout the region, including in Antigua, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

As Beryl heads toward the Gulf of Mexico, Texas may be at risk

While Jamaicans brace for the storm, countries in the northwestern Caribbean Sea and western Gulf of Mexico have been warned they could be next as Beryl moves west.

The NHC expects Beryl to continue moving westward as a hurricane, albeit with a possible weakening over the next day.

It says tropical storm conditions are expected along the southern coast of Hispaniola on Wednesday, and possible along the coast of Belize by Thursday or early Friday.

Hurricane conditions are possible along portions of the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula as early as late Thursday.

In the US, officials are urging coastal Texas residents to keep an eye on the Gulf this holiday week.

Texas Division of Emergency Management announced on Tuesday that residents and visitors to coastal areas should heed local warnings and have a plan ready in case of bad weather, especially during the weekend.

As Texans take time to enjoy the holiday weekend with family and friends, it's important to stay aware of the weather, pay attention to rapidly changing forecasts and not be caught without an emergency plan, the chief of Emergency Management said. of Texas Nim Kidd.

Meteorologist Eric Berger said Houston Public Media that while Beryls' potential impact on the central Texas coast is still uncertain, it is unlikely to hit the Caribbean with the same intensity.

My sense of what will happen is that we will see increased rain chances Saturday and especially Sunday, but I am not predicting a hurricane to form in the Gulf and move up the central Texas coast, he added.

Officials say Beryl epitomizes the dangers of climate change

Beryl is an unusually strong hurricane for this early season, driven by high ocean temperatures that have been fueled by climate change that is making powerful storms more common.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an extra active hurricane season in the Atlantic, which runs from June to November.

As they prepare for Beryl, some Jamaican officials are pointing to the storm as an example of how developing countries are coping with the burden of climate change.

Holness, the prime minister, said in a televised speech On Tuesday as the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, Beryl highlights the increasing impact of climate change on Small developing islandslike Jamaica.

While our carbon emissions are small, our region bears the brunt of the impacts of climate change, he added. This hurricane further highlights the urgent need for global climate action and targeted support to increase resilience to the growing risks of climate change.

Echoing these remarks, the Jamaican senator Delroy Williams told CNN that the international community must do more to expand coastal cities' access to climate change-related funding and to improve infrastructure in low-lying areas.

Beryl made that conversation very personal for Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and a native of Carriacou.

His late grandmother's house was destroyed and his parents' property damaged, his office told AFP. He called climate change not a problem of tomorrow.

This is happening now in every economy, Stiell added. Disasters on a scale that was once the stuff of science fiction are becoming meteorological facts, and the climate crisis is the main culprit.”