Canadians in the Caribbean scrambled to get out of harm’s way as Hurricane Beryl tore through the region Wednesday, bearing down on Jamaica, which declared a state of emergency and closed its airports. The Category 4 storm has killed at least six people and caused significant damage in the southeast Caribbean, including Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said on X the government continues to monitor the situation and urging Canadians to avoid non-essential travel to the region.

Joly thanked Air Transat for helping to fly home Canadians on Tuesday from Jamaica before airports on the island were proactively shuttered before the storm, causing flight cancellations both outbound to and inbound from Canada.

Air Transat said in a statement that it sent three “rescue flights” to Jamaica on Tuesday, all of which landed safely in Montreal and Toronto on Wednesday morning.

The United States National Hurricane Center forecast the storm to be at or near major hurricane strength when it passed Jamaica, and when reaching the Cayman Islands on Thursday.

Early Thursday morning, the storm’s centre was about 800 km east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico, where it is forecast to make landfall in a sparsely populated area of lagoons and mangroves south of Tulum in the early hours of Friday, probably as a Category 2 storm. Then it is expected to cross the Yucatan Peninsula and re-strengthen over the warm Gulf of Mexico to make a second strike on Mexico’s northeast coast near the Texas border.

Beryl’s eye wall brushed by Jamaica’s southern coast Wednesday afternoon knocking out power and ripping roofs off homes.

In Kingston, Jamaica, people boarded up windows, fishermen pulled their boats out of the water and workers dismantled roadside advertising boards to protect them from the lashing winds, which by midday howled in the capital, turning the sea into churning whitecaps.

“We are very concerned about a wide variety of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica,” including storm surge, high winds and flash flooding, said Jon Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Porter called Beryl “the strongest and most dangerous hurricane threat that Jamaica has faced, probably, in decades.”

Jamaica was under a state of emergency as the island was declared a disaster zone hours before the impact of Hurricane Beryl.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that the disaster zone declaration will remain for the next seven days. He also implemented an island-wide curfew between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

Security forces “will be fully mobilized to maintain public order and assist with disaster relief. As soon as the hurricane has passed, the security forces have developed strategic plans to counter any potential threat of looting or any other opportunistic crimes,” Holness warned.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Haiti’s southern coast and the Yucatan’s east coast. Belize issued a tropical storm watch stretching south from its border with Mexico to Belize City.

Late Monday, Beryl became the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic and peaked at winds of 270 kph.

Jamaica’s southern coast, where Kingston is located, was expected to bear the brunt of Beryl with coastal water levels rising to 1.8 to 2.7 metres above normal tide levels in some area.

Mexico

Mexico’s Caribbean coast was preparing for Beryl Wednesday. The government issued a hurricane warning for the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancun.

The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency said that Beryl is expected to make a rare double strike on Mexico. Laura Velázquez said the hurricane is expected to make landfall between late Thursday and early Friday along a relatively unpopulated stretch of the Caribbean coast between Tulum and the inland town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Because the coast there is largely made up of lagoons and mangroves, there are few resorts or hotels in the area south of Tulum.

The hurricane is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it crosses the Yucatan peninsula and reemerge over the weekend at storm strength into the Gulf of Mexico. Velázquez said that Beryl is then expected to hit Mexican territory a second time in the Gulf coast states of Veracruz or Tamaulipas, near the Texas border.

Trail of destruction

As Beryl barreled through the Caribbean Sea, rescue crews in southeastern islands fanned out to determine the extent of the damage the hurricane inflicted on Carriacou, an island in Grenada.

Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said. Two other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where five people are missing, officials said. About 25,000 people in that area also were affected by heavy rainfall from Beryl.

One fatality in Grenada occurred after a tree fell on a house, Kerryne James, the environment minister, said, adding that Carriacou and Petit Martinique sustained the greatest damage, with scores of homes and businesses flattened in Carriacou.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Tuesday there was no power, roads are impassable and the possible rise of the death toll “remains a grim reality.”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has promised to rebuild the archipelago. He noted that 90% of homes on Union Island were destroyed, and that “similar levels of devastation” were expected on the islands of Myreau and Canouan.

The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.

Aid

Meanwhile, the Canadian Red Cross has launched the Hurricane Beryl Appeal to help those affected by the hurricane. Money raised will enable the Red Cross to provide immediate relief, support recovery efforts, and resilience and preparedness activities for future events. The activities and areas impacted may evolve based on emerging needs and compounding future events, says the organization.

Canadians wishing to make a donation to the Hurricane Beryl Appeal can do so online at redcross.ca or by calling 1-800-418-1111.

At the same time, the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) promised relief efforts for those hardest hit by the hurricane, particularly in islands such as Carriacou and Petite Martinique in Grenada, as well as Mayreau, Canouan, Union Island and others which form part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“We will be working in collaboration with our National Hotel and Tourism Associations in Grenada and St. Vincent to provide necessary support and aid to the local communities impacted by Hurricane Beryl,” said CHTA President Nicola Madden-Greig, who conveyed the association’s interest with the safety of everyone still in the storm’s path, including the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands.