Photos: Deadly Hurricane Beryl breaks records as it bears down on the Caribbean
Hurricane Beryl was heading toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands as a Category 4 storm on Wednesday morning, with sustained winds of 145 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Beryl already made landfall on several Caribbean islands earlier this week, causing extensive damage and multiple deaths.
Residents in the Caribbean have been advised to shelter in place as the storm is expected to bring “life-threatening winds” and flooding.
Beryl first made landfall on the Windward Islands, which includes Grenada, the Grenadines and Carriacou Island, late Monday morning. The hurricane also wreaked havoc on the islands of Barbados, St. Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago, knocking out power and destroying homes and businesses. At its peak, Beryl was the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record and the second-strongest Atlantic storm ever recorded in July, with sustained winds that reached 165 mph at one point.
“The situation is grim,” Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said in a news conference Tuesday. “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.”