In an address to the nation on Saturday night, Barbados' Prime Minister urged residents to watch out for their friends, family and neighbors as the hurricane makes landfall.
Forecasters said Hurricane Beryl, which formed from a tropical storm Friday night, is already packing winds of up to 130 mph as it moves west toward the Caribbean island.
They predict that by the time the storm hits the windward islands of Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, there will be “hurricane-force” winds, a “life-threatening” storm surge and heavy rain.
Beryl is the second named storm this year, following Tropical Storm Alberto, which made landfall in northeastern Mexico on June 20. Four people died from the storm's heavy rain.
The Barbados Meteorological Service has issued a warning of power outages and flash flooding as the eye of the hurricane is expected to pass about 45km south of the island.
The storm is expected to dump up to 6 inches (15 cm) of rain on Caribbean islands, including Barbados.
In Barbados' capital Bridgetown, people are boarding up their homes and crowding supermarkets and gas stations.
“We are absolutely vigilant and must take every precaution possible for ourselves, our families and our neighbors,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said on Saturday.
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonçalves urged supermarkets and petrol stations to extend their opening hours ahead of the hurricane's arrival, adding that emergency shelters would remain open on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, in a briefing shared online by the Dominican government, meteorologist Itoma James urged residents to prepare, warning that the hurricane could be “devastating.”
The hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, is expected to be a very busy one this year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued its most alarming warning yet for this season: Forecasters say up to 25 storms could form in 2024.
NOAA says between eight and 13 of these storms could become hurricanes.
Four to seven of these storms could strengthen into Category 3 or worse hurricanes. That number will be more than double the usual number.
Hurricane Beryl is now one of the first storms to arrive as warned by NOAA.
Hurricane expert Michael Lowry wrote on social media that it was “amazing” to see Category 3 or higher storms forecast so early in the season “anywhere in the Atlantic, let alone this far east in the deep tropics.”
“Only five major hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July. Beryl would be the sixth and earliest hurricane to do so in the tropical Atlantic.”
Hurricanes are classified on a scale of 1 to 5, with Category 5 storms having the most extreme winds exceeding 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph). The stronger a hurricane is, the more damage it is considered to cause.
The 2023 hurricane season featured 19 named storms.
