Beryl heads towards Jamaica leaving a trail of destruction

Hurricane Beryl roared through open waters yesterday as a category 5 storm on a path that will take it near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands after earlier making landfall in the southeast Caribbean, killing at least six people.

- DANICA COTO & KOFI JONES

A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica and a hurricane watch for Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.

Beryl was forecast to start losing intensity yesterday but still to be near major hurricane strength when it passes near Jamaica today, the Cayman Islands tomorrow and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the US National Hurricane Centre.

It warned that Beryl was expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica, where officials warned residents in flood-prone areas to prepare for evacuation. Prime minister Andrew Holness said: “I am encouraging all Jamaicans to take the hurricane as a serious threat. It is, however, not a time to panic.”

Beryl is the earliest category 5 storm ever to form in the Atlantic, fuelled by record warm waters. Early yesterday, the storm was located about 485km (300 miles) southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic. It had top winds of 165 mph and was moving west-northwest at 22 mph.

A tropical storm warning was in place for the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, an island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. As the storm barrelled through the Caribbean Sea, rescue crews in the southeast Caribbean fanned out across the region to determine the extent of the damage that Hurricane Beryl inflicted after landing on Carriacou, an island in Grenada, as a category 4 storm.