Sister Island given all clear as Hurricane Beryl moves away

(CNS): As Hurricane Beryl began to move away from the Cayman Islands Thursday morning, the Cayman Islands Government issued the all-clear for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. However, on Grand Cayman, the shelter-in-place direction was still in place at 11:00am as the outer bands of Beryl, still a category 3 hurricane, continued to pass to the south, bringing more heavy rain and thunderstorms, though the winds had calmed significantly. Officials urged residents to stay off the roads to allow damage assessments to get underway.

At its closest point of approach, Beryl was 100 miles south of the Sister Islands. Grand Cayman remains under a hurricane warning, as the hurricane passed 50 miles southwest. A stay-in-place advisory is still in effect for Grand Cayman, as radars show heavy showers around the island, which pose dangerous conditions for the next few hours.

While there have been no official reports on the extent of damage across Grand Cayman, given the intensity of the storm and the proximity of the closest point of approach, the impact appears to have been confined to specific locations on the south coast, such as South Sound.

The Water Authority has restored water across Grand Cayman but urged people to report any leaks or damage. Electricity and communication services have so far largely held up, with no major power loss. However, more than 1,500 CUC customers in East End and North Side were still without power Thursday morning.

According to CUC’s outage map, at 11:00am, 46 outages were affecting around 3,400 customers. On Little Cayman, the power was turned off to protect their older system. Two trees came down on power lines but power has since been restored, according to Island Energy (formerly Cayman Brac Power and Light Co).

At 10:00am local time, Beryl was 95 miles west-southwest of Grand Cayman moving away from our area in a west-northwesterly direction at nearly 18 mph heading towards the Yucatan Peninsula with maximum sustained winds of 115mph and higher gusts. Beryl has also shrunk slightly and now has hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 30 miles from the centre and tropical-storm-force winds up to 160 miles out.

Beryl has broken several records. It was the first category 4 storm on record to form in June. Behaving more like a late Atlantic season hurricane, it appears to be a sign of things to come. In line with the predictions made by most experts that 2024 is going to be a very busy season, fuelled in large part by a transition from La Niña to El Niño and the intensely hot waters across the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. Hurricanes usually need sea surface temperatures to be at least 80.5°F to develop, and the ocean along Beryl’s path is much warmer.

The CIG is expected to issue a statement during a live broadcast at 1:00pm Thursday.

See the full government release on the all-clear for the Sister Islands here.