In July of last year, Hurricane Beryl barreled through the southeastern Caribbean, causing hundreds of millions worth of damage to Grenada’s family islands, St. Vincent, Barbados, and Jamaica, among other nations. Back then, experts had dubbed the category five storm that came ashore at the end of June as the earliest to have ever formed and made landfall in the Atlantic.
Now, 13 months after, the northern, rather than eastern, Caribbean is bracing for Hurricane Erin, which at the weekend had strengthened to a Category Five storm, packing outer band winds of up to 160 miles per hour before weakening to a four on Monday.
Governments and disaster preparedness officials across the Caribbean stepped up preparations for Erin as the work week began with Hispaniola, which houses Haiti and The Dominican Republic; The US Virgin Islands; The Bahamas; and Bermuda all placing citizens on alert as the storm intensifies.
In The Bahamas, officials said that current models do not forecast a direct hit to the main tourism island as projections show that Erin will pass north of the southeastern portion of the archipelago. Still, experts asked citizens of Inagua, Mayaguana, Acklins, Crooked Island, Samana Cay, and Long Cay to be on full alert and be prepared to head to shelters should conditions worsen. Disaster agency officials had also moved some residents from Samana Cay at the weekend as a precaution against high winds and storm surges.
The archipelago had suffered severe damage for Category Five storm Dorian in September of 2019, leveling many homes and buildings in Grand Bahamas and Abaco. Efforts are still being made to replace some structures six years after the storm came ashore.
Godfrey Greene, the Deputy Director of Meteorology in the Bahamas told reporters at a press conference on Sunday that a large area including neighboring islands is likely to be impacted. “Erin’s outer bands are producing gusty winds, heavy rains and thunderstorms across the Turks and Caicos Islands, and The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. On the forecast track, the center of Erin is expected to pass to the east of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeast Bahamas Sunday night and Monday. Residents in the southeast Bahamas should begin to make preparations for tropical storm conditions for Monday morning. Rainfall in the amount of three to six inches, with isolated amounts of eight inches is expected from the outer bands of Erin.” BahamasAir has already cancelled flights to the outer islands expected to be impacted. Services should resume by midweek, providing there is no aviation infrastructural damage, officials said.
In the mid-Atlantic, authorities in Bermuda also placed the British colony on alert as the storm is expected to impact the island if current projections hold true. The local weather services says that Erin will visit with “life threatening surf”, triggering rip currents in the area.
Meanwhile, major international cruise liners out of Florida are already cancelling routine stops to Bermuda, with Carnival Sunshine avoiding the island and canceling its routes from Virginia with port calls scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday as a precautionary measure.
Royal Caribbean has followed suit with its Vision of the Seas mega ship avoiding the island for most of this week until it is safe to call again.
American forecasters have suggested there is a 50 percent chance of an above-normal season for 2025 with 13-18 named storms popping up on radars this year with winds of 40 miles per hour or greater. Up to nine can become major hurricanes, stated NOAA, the major US weather monitoring agency.