At least two people have died in Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, the category 4 storm that hammered the island on Wednesday.
One man in his 20s died after being washed away in the Trench Town gully in Kingston. Reports are the man was outside playing football during the storm. Another woman in the Hanover parish died after a tree collapsed on her house, according to the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.
This brings the death toll from Beryl to at least 11 people. Per Reuters, three people reportedly died in Grenada and Carriacou, three people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and three people in Venezuela.
Late Monday, Beryl became the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic and peaked at winds of 165 mph (270 kph). It weakened to a still-destructive Category 4 on Tuesday night, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, just hours before impacting Jamaica on Wednesday morning.
Historic Beryl also marked the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the entire country a disaster area for a period of seven days under section 26 of the National Disaster Risk Management Act.
On Wednesday, nearly 500 people had been placed in shelters, according
to the prime minister. The island’s electricity provider Jamaica Public Service (JPS) said that some 65% of its customers, or around 400,000 people, were without power as of Wednesday night.
The hurricane warning and curfew have been discontinued on the island. Public buildings, such as the Norman Manley International Airport, suffered minor infrastructural damage in Kingston.
Southern parishes hard hit
Beryl’s eyewall brushed Jamaica’s southern coast Wednesday afternoon, causing significant damage across many parishes.
In the southern parishes of Manchester and St. Elizabeth, the system’s strong winds and driving rain severely impacted infrastructure.
Member of Parliament for Southwest St. Elizabeth, Floyd Green, described the situation as “complete devastation,” noting that many people have lost their homes.
Additionally, he reported that a significant number of people in all communities across the constituency, from Treasure Beach to Barbary Hall, have lost their roofs.
“From all the reports I have received, we have taken a most devastating blow in St. Elizabeth from Hurricane Beryl. Significant numbers of roofs being lost, houses destroyed, trees uprooted, light poles downed, almost all roads are impassable. Going to be an extremely long night,” he posted to social media platform X late Wednesday.
Green stated that most of the main road network was impassable due to downed trees, including at Brompton, Lewis Town, Crawford, Luana to Brompton, Elim, Holland Bamboo, Nain, and Goshen.
He has already reached out to the National Works Agency and the Jamaica Public Service Company to try to clear some of the roadways.
A team from the Ministry of Labour will be on the ground Thursday to start responding to those with damage.
In Manchester, the situation was similar, with people losing their roofs in South and Central Manchester. Several roads were reportedly blocked in other parts of the parish.
