By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 2024 – As Jamaica today braced for a direct hit from Hurricane Beryl with devastating winds of 145 miles per hour, the Government of The Bahamas took the yesterday sent a Bahamasair aircraft to Kingston to evacuate Bahamian students attending higher education institutions in Jamaica.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell released the following press statement yesterday: “The Cabinet has decided to airlift Bahamian students from Jamaica by their request.
Consul General Alveta Knight has been instructed to advise those who wish to leave in the face of Hurricane Beryl that a 50-seater Bahamasair aircraft is being sent to the airport in Kingston this afternoon, 2 July 2024. Students are asked to arrive at the airport at 2 p.m. Jamaican time and coordinate their departures with Consul General Alveta Knight.”
The press statement provided all the relevant information on how to contact Consul Alveta Knight at The Bahamas Consulate in Jamaica
When the students arrived at Lynden Pindling International (LPIA) in Nassau yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell along with Minister for Education Glenys Hanna-Martin and Minister of Labour and Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle were at the airport to greet them.
Ahead of Beryl’s arrival, officials declared Jamaica a disaster area and imposed a curfew on Wednesday. The storm will then impact the Cayman Islands this evening before making its way to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Grenada was left with “unimaginable” destruction, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said after the storm destroyed buildings and left several people dead.
“We have to rebuild from the ground up,” he said.
Officials said about 98 percent of the buildings on the islands, home to 6,000 people, had been damaged or destroyed. Four people have been confirmed dead in the region and three in Venezuela, taking the death toll to seven.
A published news report at 10 a.m. today noted that Hurricane Beryl “will hit Jamaica as a Category 4 storm with 145mph winds this afternoon after charting a deadly path through Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.”
“After that, Beryl will take aim at the Cayman Islands by Thursday and then possibly the Texas Gulf Coast early next week,” the report stated.
The storm killed at least four people in the Windward Islands and is reported to have “flattened” the island of Carriacou, Grenada. Damage assessment and emergency response is still underway there, as well as in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados.
Three deaths in Venezuela are also being blamed on heavy rains and flooding as the storm passed by.
Beryl already made history as the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record before weakening slightly to a Category 4 Tuesday afternoon.
Oswald T. Brown is the Press Attaché at the Embassy of The Bahamas in Washington, D.C.
