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A powerful hurricane began sweeping through the eastern Caribbean Islands on Monday, making a devastating landfall on Carriacou, a small island north of Grenada, officials said.<\/p>\n
In a briefing broadcast on social media, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell of Grenada said that Carriacou had been \u201cflattened\u201d in just half an hour and that government officials also expected \u201cextreme\u201d damage on the neighboring island of Petite Martinique.<\/p>\n
One death was reported in Grenada\u2019s capital, St. George\u2019s, after a tree fell on a house. \u201cThis hits home,\u201d Mr. Mitchell said. \u201cThe deceased person is in fact the relative of one of the persons who spent the last 36 hours with us here at the National Emergency Operating Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a Category 4 storm, Hurricane Beryl \u2014 the first of this year\u2019s season \u2014 left a trail of destruction in its path as it made landfall: trees snapped in half, extensive storm surge and roofs blown off as winds reached more than 150 miles per hour<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There was no power on Carriacou and Petite Martinique, and communication was difficult, officials said.<\/p>\n Mr. Mitchell said that the complete scale of the damage on Carriacou and Petite Martinique would not be clear until Tuesday morning, adding that he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it was safe to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was devastation all around,\u201d the prime minister said. \u201cWe therefore expect that we will have to quickly transition into damage assessment and recovery and stabilization mode.\u201d<\/p>\n Early reports of damage also emerged in the capital as the storm passed over the main island. The roof of a police station was ripped away and a hospital had to evacuate patients to a lower level after its roof sustained damage.<\/p>\n Beryl was an anomaly in what is already an unusually busy storm season, which extends until the end of November. According to forecasters, it is the third major hurricane ever in the Atlantic Ocean in June \u2014 and the first time a Category 4 materialized this early there in the season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIncredible doesn\u2019t cut it. This truly is something else of a hurricane,\u201d Noah Bergren, a meteorologist for Fox 35 Orlando in Florida, said on X<\/a>. \u201cWill be a fast moving storm, but for a few hours will be just hell on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n The hurricane later strengthened into a Category 5 storm as it raked islands in the southeast Caribbean.<\/p>\n