A renowned Vancouver-based chocolatier is unable to leave Jamaica as Hurricane Beryl slams the Caribbean country.
Thomas Haas said he’s lucky to feel safe in a hotel in Montego Bay, on the northwest of the island.
“You could see roofs going off and a wedding chapel getting ripped off the beach — which is now part of the ocean,” he told CBC News from his room. “It was quite the scene.”
Driven by warmer-than-usual seas, Hurricane Beryl brought pounding rains and winds of more than 200 km/h to Jamaica on Wednesday. The storm has already destroyed homes, flooded roads and felled banana trees on the island of Grenada, and at least 10 people have died so far.
Haas, whose chocolates and pastries have won numerous awards over the years, had been in Jamaica since Sunday for a family reunion — his wife and her parents are from the Island country. He said they were planning to stay until Saturday.
On Tuesday, he was told the hurricane was coming. Hotel employees frantically cleaned up outdoor furniture but the weather was “quite calm,” he said.
But by mid-morning Wednesday the wind and rain started to pick up, and by noon Haas said he needed to head indoors.
“I was glad I did,” he said, adding two or three minutes later, metal roofs started to fly off buildings.
The rain intensified as afternoon turned to evening, Haas said.
“It was pounding so hard against the windows that you couldn’t see anything outdoors,” he said.
Water started to leak through the closed balcony doors in some of his family’s rooms and the ocean swelled to cover most of the beach, he added.
In an interview with CBC News Network on Thursday morning, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the country is already in recovery mode, with about 1,000 people in shelters, and he’s heard two reports that people may have died.
“We have had damage,” Holness said. “But these are damages you’d expect in a hurricane.”
Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness told CBC News Network that there were about 1,000 people in shelters as of Thursday morning, but he expected that number to go down by the end of the day as the danger posed by Hurricane Beryl moves toward Mexico. Holness, who is heading out to survey the damage, said he expects the Montego Bay airport to be open ‘before the day is out.’
Airports closed during the hurricane, but Holness said he expects Sangster International Airport near Montego Bay to reopen by the end of the day.
In his hotel, Haas said he’s more worried about the people who live in Jamaica than himself and the other tourists.
“There’s a little bit of guilt,” Haas said. “I never felt really unsafe, but I’m thinking about the people in town.”
While Jamaica is no stranger to hurricanes, Beryl struck unusually early this year.
Researchers expect the warming climate to make extreme flooding and rainfall from hurricanes stronger, and happen more often. Some researchers also expect climate change to make hurricanes, which are fuelled by warm seas, more intense.