Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall As Major Category 4 Storm

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BARBADOS – Hurricane Beryl made landfall today as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, unleashing its fury on the Windward Islands with violent winds, intense rainfall, and life-threatening storm surges. We spoke to a Bahamian and Bajan in Barbados about the storm’s impact.

Alexandria Adderley is a first-year student at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology. She says while she’s not in the direct path of the storm, they did feel some of the impact and would have much rather been at home.

Beryl had weakened earlier today to a Category 3 storm and then picked up again to a Category 4 storm, packing maximum sustained wind speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour. The storm triggered power outages and flooding in the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, and Tobago Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

We spoke with Kobie Broomes, a native of southeast Barbados. Beryl is the first hurricane of what is expected to be an extraordinary 2024 season. It marked an unusually fierce and early start to this year’s Atlantic hurricane season—the earliest Category 4 storm on record. It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane, a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history.