Heidi Badnock knew a storm was coming. But for the 34-year-old attorney and Union Island resident, the first nine hours of July 1, 2024, were fairly normal, she later recalled. The 3.5-square-mile (9.1-square-kilometer) Caribbean island – part of the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines – has been monitoring weather forecasts for months as it has been experiencing a severe drought.
“We're always watching the weather, trying to figure out when it's going to rain,” Badnock said in a recent WhatsApp call. As Hurricane Beryl approached, she and her family boarded up part of their house. She was very confident they could weather the storm safely.
At 9:30 a.m., Badenock noticed the wind was starting to pick up. She looked at the garage roof. power cut. Then, just after 10 a.m., the roof of the garage was completely ripped off by strong winds.
That's when she realized this storm was going to be unlike any she'd ever experienced.
a monster storm
Beryl's long life begins with what meteorologists call a tropical wave, a low-pressure disturbance that drifts off the coast of West Africa on easterly winds. As the disturbance moved across the tropical Atlantic, it encountered extremely hot water — temperatures not typically seen until September, the height of hurricane season. Climate change and the recurring weather pattern of El Niño are the main factors leading to unusually warm ocean waters.
To a hurricane, warm water is like dry wood for a campfire. On June 28, the disturbance developed into a tropical depression, quickly intensified into a hurricane, and then rapidly intensified again. On July 1, Hurricane Beryl approached Union Island as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph. A monster.
hiding under bed
Badennock's father suggested they hide under the bed. Badenock texted a friend from under her bed saying she was scared. At 10:24 a.m., Badenock checked the position of Hurricane Beryl via Zoom Earth. The storm has yet to hit the island.
Her mother left the room. When she returned, she told Badenock that the bathroom roof was gone. Then she heard the chandelier in the living room fall to the floor.
“In my mind, I said 'This is it.' I wasn't sure what 'it' was at the time, but now I know it was the beginning of the end of the home I've known my entire life,” Badnock later posted on her Facebook page wrote.
Hurricane Beryl caused devastation the likes of which St. Vincent and the Grenadines had not experienced since Hurricane Janet in 1955.
Hours passed and Badenock lay under the bed, water pooling around her. She prayed. By now, phone service has disappeared. Finally, the howling wind began to quiet down. The pressure in her ears eased, and the vibrations in the house subsided.
“When I first opened the door, I was in awe. The home I knew no longer existed,” she wrote. Outside, the roofs were ripped off every home around her home. Debris was scattered everywhere, the hills around her home turned brown and all the trees were flattened.
She found her father hiding under the bed in another room. The windows were blown out and water leaked in. He told her he almost drowned. He spent the remainder of the storm hiding under a mattress in the bathroom.
aftermath
As scary as the storm was, in some ways the coming days and weeks were even more difficult.
Within a few days, the air began to stink.
Standing water accumulates in clogged gutters and houses, inviting swarms of mosquitoes. The dead animals swelled and rotted in the heat. Food in a refrigerator without electricity will spoil. Bees swarm in search of trees and flowers destroyed by 150-mile-an-hour winds and salt kicked up by the ocean.
Doctoral student Amandla Thomas-Johnson's family has lived on Union Island since her ancestors were brought to the island as slaves to work on the island's cotton plantations. He was living off the island when the hurricane hit, but arrived 12 days later to help his family.
He took a ferry from St. Vincent, stopping at Canouan and Mayreau before Union Island.
“When we got to Union, the waterfront was completely destroyed,” he said. “I'm almost unrecognizable.”
His great-grandmother lived in a hotel on the seafront in the town of Clifton. He said he didn't even recognize the building – a boat now parked where her bedroom was. As he walked across the island, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
“It's basically like a post-apocalyptic movie scene,” he said.
But union members went to work laying tarps on the roof. They cooked and slept in the few undamaged buildings. Jeremie Tronet, a professional kitesurfer who lives on the island, has a Starlink kit that allows people to make calls, send texts and post messages to worried loved ones who are anxiously awaiting news. means they're fine.
“I think this experience showed me the importance of community. I think maybe that's something you take for granted on a normal day,” Badnock said. “But when you’re actually together, you realize how important it is to have people who are willing to open doors for you or do things for you.”
After damaging approximately 90% of the buildings on Union Island, Beryl further intensified into a Category 5 hurricane as it moved toward Jamaica. This is the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Lose everything”
One month after Hurricane Beryl struck, the Grenadines are still feeling the effects of the disaster.
An estimated one-third of Union Island's roughly 3,000 residents have left the island, mainly for St. Vincent, the eastern Caribbean country's largest island.
Agriculture Minister Saboto Cesar told the Inter-American Conference of Agriculture Ministers that the country is on the brink of food insecurity after suffering an average of one climate disaster per year over the past five years. According to the St. Vincent Times, Hurricane Beryl destroyed 98% of the country’s banana and plantain production and completely devastated the fishing industry.
Badnock and her family are now staying with relatives in St. Vincent. Like many other residents, they started a GoFundMe to try to raise enough money to rebuild their homes. Like most United Islanders, they have no insurance.
Badenock said her father broke down days after the storm.
“I think for him it probably hit harder because he built his own home. That's where he put his resources,” she said. “At his age, the thought of losing everything is painful enough, especially when you're not sure what's going to happen next in the recovery process.”
As of this writing, the government is still assessing damage on all islands. The neighboring islands of Mayreau, Carriacou, Canouan and Petite Martinique were also severely affected.
consequences of climate warming
Badenock is well aware of the impact climate change is having on her home.
“When you come from such a small place, you have to be conscious… you can't pretend this isn't happening,” she said. “You know, 20 years ago, it had never been this hot. Twenty years ago… the water levels reached a certain level. You know, you never saw so much sargassum. You saw coral bleaching from the hot water. .
She still hopes the island can build back better, but that will require financial resources and better construction.
“It's probably not going to be another 70 years before we have another Category 4 or 5 storm,” she said. “So in a few years we will see beryl appear again…homes will be gone, life will be gone and we will do it again.” I think we should improve what we have based on our experience.
Thomas Johnson, a doctoral student who returned to the island to help his family, conducted a series of interviews with Union Islanders and posted them on his Facebook page. One of them, a middle school teacher named Dana Joseph, had nothing left except some documents in a vacuum-sealed bag.
“But I'm glad I still have life and can be here talking about it. Anything lost can be rebuilt,” she told him.
Now, more than a month after Hurricane Beryl, cellphone service is once again restored on Union Island, but the power is still largely out. Schools are still in session for the summer, but many residents are resisting Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves' proposal to move all students to St. Vincent.
There is growing frustration that other islands in the Grenadines are recovering faster than Union Island.
Thomas-Johnson said it was difficult to see his country on the front lines of climate change and understand what it was already going through.
“With climate change, this is like another blow because the countries with the largest greenhouse gas emissions tend to be richer countries,” he said. “Now, poor areas that were already struggling to overcome colonialism are now being hit hard. It's like a double whammy.
If you would like to donate to relief efforts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, here are some verified organizations working on the islands. The article also links to a GoFundMe campaign started by the Badendock family and other Union Island families:
world central kitchen
direct relief
care
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