Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell said Tues­day at least three peo­ple were killed and “pos­si­bly more”, af­ter Hur­ri­cane Beryl bat­tered Grena­da and its sis­ter is­lands on Mon­day with winds in ex­cess of 140 miles per hour (mph)

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence, Mitchell, said that two of the deaths oc­curred on the sis­ter isle of Car­ri­a­cou, while the oth­er was on the main­land in Grena­da.

He said ef­forts are be­ing made to se­cure a he­li­copter to vis­it Car­ri­a­cou giv­en that seas be­tween the is­lands are still very rough, and the Coast Guard ves­sels would most like­ly be un­able to cope with the sit­u­a­tion.

“It is re­port­ed that at least two fa­tal­i­ties … there is wide­spread de­struc­tion … pos­si­bil­i­ty of more fa­tal­i­ties is a re­al­i­ty and in­ter­nal move­ment be­tween Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tite Mar­tinique is still very much re­strict­ed,” the Grena­da PM re­port­ed.

He said the re­stric­tion is as a re­sult of be­ing un­able to clear the road­way be­cause of a lack of fu­el for the ma­chines, and the downed util­i­ty lines. He added there is al­so the pos­si­bil­i­ty that even if the air­port is opened, it would be a chal­lenge to leave the area.

“We have re­quest­ed as­sis­tance for a he­li­copter from our broth­ers and sis­ters in the re­gion, and as soon as we have that we will seek to give a fur­ther up­date to the peo­ple of Grena­da, Pe­tite Mar­tinique and Car­ri­a­cou,” he said.

“But in the mean­time we are go­ing to re­ly on a larg­er craft to take the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers and some tech­ni­cal peo­ple to Car­ri­a­cou and once they get there we will have a fur­ther up­date,” Mitchell said.

He said the cab­i­net will meet in emer­gency ses­sion this af­ter­noon, fol­low­ing the meet­ing of Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) lead­ers this morn­ing at 10:00 am (lo­cal time), “where we will be­gin to plan to [re­cov­er from] the dev­as­ta­tion brought by Hur­ri­cane Beryl”.

Scenes of damage by Hurricane Beryl in Carriacou, Grenada. Image courtesy MP Ron Redhead, Member of Parliament for St. George North-East in Grenada (via Facebook)

Mitchell, who has said he still wants to vis­it Car­ri­a­cou on Tues­day, not­ed that the north of Grena­da has suf­fered se­vere de­struc­tion as well.

He told re­porters the re­sponse from the re­gion, as well as from Grena­di­ans in the di­as­po­ra, has been over­whelm­ing.

“Clear­ly this is a trau­mat­ic event in our his­to­ry com­ing on the 50th an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence and we have no choice but to rise from the ash­es and to re­main unit­ed and to build.

“We should nev­er waste a cri­sis and I think this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty again for us to strength­en our prepa­ra­tional re­sponse to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, which clear­ly will con­tin­ue hap­pen­ing. This is over­whelm­ing proof of the dra­mat­ic changes, like cli­mat­ic con­di­tions and its im­pact on us as small is­lands de­vel­op­ing states.

“I don’t think we need to prove our loss­es here and so, when we speak to those na­tions that are cre­at­ing this cli­mate cri­sis based on the burn­ing of fos­sil fu­els, we have yet an­oth­er clear and over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence of the fact that we are con­stant­ly fac­ing an ex­is­ten­tial threat to our way of life brought about by cli­mate change.”

Mitchell said that it is time for the de­vel­oped coun­tries to, “move past the talk­ing and be able to re­alise that re­sources are in fact need­ed to build our re­silience and to build our sus­tain­abil­i­ty against this ever present threat that they have cre­at­ed.”

Mean­while, Hur­ri­cane Beryl is ex­pect­ed to bring life threat­en­ing winds and storm surges to Ja­maica on Wednes­day as it moves across the Caribbean Sea.

The Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter (NHC) said that the storm is 625 miles east south-east of Kingston and a hur­ri­cane warn­ing is in ef­fect for the coun­try, while a hur­ri­cane watch re­mains in ef­fect for Grand Cay­man, Cay­man Brac and Lit­tle Cay­man.

A trop­i­cal storm warn­ing is in ef­fect for the south coast of Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic from Pun­ta Palenque west­ward to the bor­der with Haiti, and the south coast of Haiti from the bor­der with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to Anse d’Hain­ault.

The NHC said that the eye of Hur­ri­cane Beryl was lo­cat­ed near lat­i­tude 15.0 North, lon­gi­tude 67.9 West and it is mov­ing to­wards the west-north­west near 22 mph.

It is fore­cast to con­tin­ue mov­ing rapid­ly west-north-west­ward dur­ing the next cou­ple of days and turn west­ward by Thurs­day.

On the fore­cast track, the cen­tre of Beryl will move quick­ly across the south­east­ern and cen­tral Caribbean Sea to­day and is fore­cast to pass near Ja­maica on Wednes­day and the Cay­man Is­lands on Thurs­day.

Beryl has max­i­mum sus­tained winds re­main near 165 mph with high­er gusts.  It is a cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane on the Saf­fir-Simp­son Hur­ri­cane Wind Scale.

Weak­en­ing should be­gin lat­er to­day, but Beryl is still ex­pect­ed to be near ma­jor hur­ri­cane in­ten­si­ty as it moves in­to the cen­tral Caribbean and pass­es near Ja­maica on Wednes­day and the Cay­man Is­lands on Thurs­day.

Ad­di­tion­al weak­en­ing is ex­pect­ed there­after, though Beryl is fore­cast to re­main a hur­ri­cane in the north­west­ern Caribbean,” the NHC added. —ST. GEORGE’S, Grena­da (CMC)