Digging through mud in Martinique after Hurricane Beryl
Environment — di Redazione
Hurricane Beryl has struck the Caribbean. Residents and experts alike describe it as the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the region.
Digging through mud in Martinique after Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl has struck the Caribbean. Residents and experts alike describe it as the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the region.
Gigantic palm fronds lie limp in well-tended gardens. Colourful petals are scattered across roads and rooftops. The beach is gone, but in its place sand has crept into rooms and courtyards, mixed with seaweed and rubbish. Martinique, the island of flowers, is covered in mud. And it was one of the lucky ones: Hurricane Beryl only just grazed it. The monster, declared category 4 when it made landfall on Monday 1 July 2024. It then became category 5, the most dangerous, and practically razed the islands of Grenada and Carriacou to the ground. According to the NHC, the United States' National Hurricane Center, the latter found itself directly in the eye of the cyclone, and in just over half an hour, together with neighbouring Petite Martinique, its buildings were unroofed, streets and squares flooded, and its coastlines chewed up and spat back out by the ocean in fragments of boats, cars, bricks, furniture and tree trunks.
Hurricane Beryl poses a major threat to the Caribbean. It's the earliest Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. It sets an alarming precedent for what is expected to be a very active hurricane season. This highlights the need for multi-hazard early warnings. wmo.int/media/news/rec…
According to a statement by Saint Vincent's Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, hundreds of public and private buildings on his island were severely damaged, and as many as 90 per cent of the homes on the small island of Union Island were destroyed. The Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Barbados and Martinique, though not struck with the same intensity, also suffered significant damage both on land and at sea. Numerous fishing boats and vessels sank — in Barbados, 20 per cent of the nation's fleet, says Prime Minister Mia Mottley — putting at risk a fundamental pillar of these islands' economies. Myriane Maceno-Panevel, director of maritime policy at Espace Sud, Martinique's public inter-municipal cooperation body, recounts with regret how a great many of the island's fishermen lost their boats and, in most cases, all their fishing equipment too, which had been on board or stored in warehouses along the coast: "It's their life — the boat is the means by which they work and earn their living." The same goes for the bars, restaurants and shops that locals had along the Caribbean coast, which did not withstand the violence of the waves.
"Hurricanes happen here often, but nobody had ever seen anything like this. I've lived here for 65 years and no, never. Never this much damage" a man shouts at me. Everyone nods; no one takes their hands off their shovel. Sainte-Luce is one of the worst-hit towns on the island, along with Le Diamant and Sainte-Anne. The scene that greets you as soon as you round the last bend before the town centre is a painful one.
A family is shovelling, standing on mountains of earth and seaweed that reach the building's windows. A car is completely buried in sand a short distance away — the last of priorities when you have a home you want to get back into as soon as possible. What little furniture remains has been piled up on the other side of the block, uphill, into the skips as far as they will fit and the rest right alongside, in large mounds of rubble.
"What do you want to know?" a young man shouts at me when I ask him to tell me what he saw. "There were waves metres high, taller than the rooftops — and indeed they went right over the rooftops — and there was nothing we could do."
"The boats too: we were there, helpless, watching our lives disappear."
"And we were lucky, because we're all alive. We were lucky," says a woman, as she digs a drainage channel between the mountains of sand in an attempt to let the water drain away from the house.
The young man, Jordan, is 28 years old and he too says he has never seen anything like it in his entire life. He shows me the building they are trying to clear: "This is where we started — the sand came up to there," he says, pointing to the height of the window, "and I was digging from the balcony." A full day's work for the whole family, friends and relatives included, and finally the first room is completely empty: walls, ceiling — "it's a miracle it stayed up!" they tell me — and a thin layer of damp sand covering the floor. "Too bad there are still all the other rooms to go," sighs Jordan, leaning on his shovel.
A little girl rests for a moment on a mound of sand, someone brings a little water, someone puts on some upbeat music, sweat pours down faces and backs and they press on. "We'll start again," says Jordan, "what else can you do? But not everyone can afford to. Start again, I mean. And then they say it'll happen again, and more often… so what will we do then? I don't even want to think about it."
They are one of dozens of families working along the island's coast to salvage what remains of homes, warehouses, restaurants and shops. Some shout in despair, some talk, some toast the arrival of a digger, some cry, some celebrate having managed to finish a small piece of the work. "Waves this high…", "no, never seen anything like it", "yes, there are hurricanes, but none like this had ever come", "help? Don't make me laugh — God helps those who help themselves", "and it's only the beginning", "the sea came all the way there, see, beyond the roof", "no, our elders say this has never happened before", "the boat is wrecked, there's no point digging there now", "never in my entire life", "maybe if we throw all this sand back into the sea we can rebuild the beach too…".
Anger, anguish and determination blend together in that community spirit that water, shovels and mud know how to create. Everyone is dealing with their own problems, but all insist that a hurricane like this, no, had never been seen in Martinique before. And the experts agree with Jordan, Maryane and the elders: according to data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recorded since 1851, Beryl is the most intense hurricane ever to have struck these islands — the Windward Islands, at the far eastern end of the Caribbean Sea.
Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm with winds around 130 miles per hour, is seen over the Caribbean from the space station as it orbited above at about 9 a.m. EDT Monday morning.
The record-breaking hurricane
Category 5 is the most dangerous on the scale, for which "catastrophic damage" to people, property and territories is forecast. Beryl, the record-breaking hurricane, is also the first of this intensity to occur in the Atlantic so early in the season, owing to the exceptionally warm ocean waters, which do not usually reach such temperatures before September. Hurricane expert Jim Kossin, in an interview given to CNN, explains that the impact of the climate crisis was decisive, because water temperatures were already in June as high as they would be during the peak of hurricane season. It was for this reason that Beryl, which like every hurricane does not read our calendar but forms and intensifies according to the environmental conditions in which it finds itself, "mistook June for September" and became the monster that it became. Jouel Henry, a municipal councillor for the town of Sainte-Luce, runs through the damage to property and people — damaged buildings and infrastructure, power outages and road disruptions. He has a white moustache that stands out against his dark skin and a bright smile. He is aware, as are almost all his fellow citizens, of the West's responsibilities with regard to what is happening here, on the other side of the world.
Europe must remember us not only when it is time to go on holiday. Because here we risk seeing entire nations disappear beneath the waves. But in the meantime we are getting on with it — we are certainly not sitting around waiting. We will start again and you will see that we will make our beautiful island bloom once more. And we will do it for you too, so that you can find it again in all its splendour.
Jouel Henry
As Beryl moves menacingly towards Jamaica and everyone hopes it will lose some of its force before making landfall, in Martinique and the neighbouring islands people are working flat out: buckets, spades, rakes, carts and wheelbarrows. Despite the oppressive heat, the heavy downpours and the gusts of wind — the last traces of the now-distant hurricane — the work goes on with a will. Young and old, men and women, friends and enemies walk back and forth, some barefoot, some in boots, it matters little: what matters is to keep walking, because it is in the mud that the deepest footprints are left.