KINGSTON: Hurricane Beryl neared Jamaica as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday, after flattening homes and devastating agriculture on smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean, killing at least seven people and creating “Armageddon-like” conditions on Grenada.

At around 5:00am, the hurricane was about 300 kilometres east-southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, according to the US National Hurricane Centre, packing maximum sustained winds of 230 kilometres per hour.

“Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Wednesday night and Thursday,” the hurricane centre said in an advisory. A hurricane warning is in effect for both places.

Hurricane conditions are expected to reach the coast of Jamaica about midday local time, with tropical storm-strength winds beginning in the late morning, making outside preparations difficult or dangerous, it said.

In the capital, Kingston, cars lined up at gas stations as people filled additional containers with fuel. Residents stocked up on water and other essential supplies and boarded up shops and houses.

“Yeah, right now [we’re] worrying about the storm. You know it’s Category 5, and in Jamaica people are worried and always shopping and buying things as in this store, said Andre, a salesperson in a local store, without giving his full name.

The unusually early hurricane, whose rapid strengthening scientists said was likely fueled by human-caused climate change, is expected to still be a hurricane when it passes near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands later this week.

Beryl, the 2024 Atlantic season’s first hurricane and the earliest storm on record to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, felled power lines and unleashed flash floods across smaller islands.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2024