{"id":87769,"date":"2024-07-04T21:04:19","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T21:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/jamaica-was-spared-the-worst-islands-clean-up-as-beryl-weakens\/"},"modified":"2024-07-04T21:04:19","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T21:04:19","slug":"jamaica-was-spared-the-worst-islands-clean-up-as-beryl-weakens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/jamaica-was-spared-the-worst-islands-clean-up-as-beryl-weakens\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jamaica Was Spared the Worst\u2019: Islands Clean Up as Beryl Weakens"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/04\/multimedia\/04hurricane-beryl-ledeall-01-bgck\/04hurricane-beryl-ledeall-01-bgck-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018Jamaica Was Spared the Worst\u2019: Islands Clean Up as Beryl Weakens\" title=\"\u2018Jamaica Was Spared the Worst\u2019: Islands Clean Up as Beryl Weakens\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hurricane Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, tore through a new swath of the Caribbean, where it had left islands flattened and communities inundated, then continued on a path toward Mexico on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Jamaica, residents who emerged from shelters took in a landscape of farmland that had been devastated, homes that had sustained damage and roads that were covered with toppled utility poles and foliage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe whole place mash up,\u201d Steve Taylor, a resident of the low-lying coastal town of Mitchell Town, told a local television station.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">St. Elizabeth, a farming region known as the country\u2019s bread basket, was hit particularly hard. \u201cSouthwest St. Elizabeth is facing complete devastation,\u201d said Jamaica\u2019s agriculture minister, Floyd Green.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, as brutal as Hurricane Beryl was, Jamaican officials surveying the destruction said it could have been still worse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe damage was not what we had expected, and so we\u2019re very grateful for that,\u201d Prime Minister Andrew Holness <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/weather\/live-news\/hurricane-beryl-storm-07-04-24#h_ddc6bf380e9f482c5a3a738f1a168075\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told CNN<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cI think Jamaica was spared the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">So far, officials said, the death toll in the Caribbean appeared low, with about eight fatalities reported. The storm first made landfall on Monday, in Grenada.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Thursday, as it plowed westward, the storm had lost some of its force and was at Category 2 strength, with winds up to 115 miles an hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With dangerous winds, storm surges and heavy rainfall expected, the authorities in Mexico were taking no chances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The government said on Thursday that it had deployed more than 13,000 workers and members of the armed forces, along with rescue dogs, and had set up mobile kitchens and water-treatment plants in Quintana Roo, a southern state facing the Caribbean that may be the first to feel the storm\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some evacuations were underway in Tulum and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, areas that officials feared would face the brunt of the storm\u2019s force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Canc\u00fan, a popular vacation spot, yachts were clustered in an inland waterway for protection.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Anders Aasen and his family arrived on Thursday at Mexico\u2019s Canc\u00fan International Airport after traveling for almost 24 hours from Norway, unaware that a hurricane was also arriving there in a matter of hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAt the hotel, they haven\u2019t given us any information about what will happen or what we have to do,\u201d said Mr. Aasen, 42, an entrepreneur, who planned to travel to Canc\u00fan and Tulum with his wife and three children. He said the family had already spent $20,000 on their trip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Most of the tourists who arrived at the airport on Thursday said they had not been informed in advance about the storm and added that neither travel agencies nor hotels had notified them about safety measures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the Gulf of Mexico, Shell Oil said it was evacuating nonessential workers from a floating oil platform. The platform, called Perdido, sits about 200 miles south of Galveston, Texas, in about 8,000 feet of water. The company said there were \u201cno other impacts on our production\u201d from the hurricane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Forecasters were predicting that Mexico would be hit not just once, but twice by the hurricane. It was on track to reach the Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula first, on Friday, and then, after traversing the Gulf of Mexico, the coast of the northern state of Tamaulipas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Residents in the Cayman Islands were largely breathing a sigh of relief after Hurricane Beryl passed by at Category 3 strength on Thursday morning without making landfall. There were no reports of significant damage, injuries or fatalities. Officials said, however, they were still assessing the storm\u2019s full effects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The storm emerged as the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University who specializes in tropical cyclones. The previous record was set by Hurricane Emily on July 17, 2005, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Meteorologists say that Hurricane Beryl\u2019s quick escalation was a direct result of above-average sea surface temperatures, and a harbinger of what may be an especially difficult hurricane season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Jamaica, power and water supplies were slowly being restored to the areas hit hard: the eastern and southern parishes of Kingston, the capital; Portland, and other neighborhoods. More than 60 percent of customers were without water and light as of Thursday morning, representatives of the main providers told local news media. Mobile phone service was still unavailable in large parts of the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Jamaica\u2019s Sangster International Airport, in the tourism area of Montego Bay, was expected to reopen later on Thursday, the transport minister said in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/darylvazmp\/status\/1808850602266444076\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a statement<\/a>, but the main airport, Norman Manley, remained closed for repairs but was expected to reopen on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The government said public-sector workers could return to work, while some commercial institutions have called in their employees. Jamaica\u2019s central bank advised that it would remain closed until Friday. Schools have shut for the summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rebuilding appeared to be a far more arduous task on islands that were hit even harder by the storm, especially in Grenada. Satellite imagery showed flattened houses and buildings without roofs, with the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique bearing the brunt of the damage. Officials said roughly 98 percent of the buildings there had been destroyed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Argyle, a popular tourist town with dozens of vacation rentals in Carriacou, before-and-after images showed structures reduced to rubble. The island\u2019s docks, usually filled with boats, were empty. And along the northeast coastline of Carriacou, damage continued far inland, satellite imagery showed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tourism is one of the island\u2019s main sources of income, and the airport and some hotels were reopening as cleanup operations began, the Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Lynsey Chutel<!-- -->, <!-- -->Daphne Ewing-Chow<!-- -->, <!-- -->Johnny Diaz<!-- --> and <!-- -->Ricardo Hern\u00e1ndez Ruiz<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/04\/world\/americas\/hurricane-beryl-jamaica-mexico.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hurricane Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, tore through a new swath of the Caribbean, where it had left islands flattened and communities inundated, then continued on a path toward Mexico on Thursday. In Jamaica, residents who emerged from shelters took in a landscape of farmland that had been devastated, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/04\/multimedia\/04hurricane-beryl-ledeall-01-bgck\/04hurricane-beryl-ledeall-01-bgck-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74078,6095,9408,75713,57499,47077,5750],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87771,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87769\/revisions\/87771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}