Hurricane Beryl Death Toll Now At 33

Hurricane Beryl traveled over 6,000 miles for more than two weeks, tracking across the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Bay of Campeche, and then the Gulf of Mexico, making three landfalls and a trail of destruction in its wake.

The last advisory was issued on Wednesday night as the storm devolved into a post-tropical cyclone as it trekked across the northeastern United States.

While those across the Caribbean continue to clean up and restore utilities after Beryl’s damaging winds, those across the United States – from Texas to Vermont – are also recovering from Beryl’s winds and rain. Over one million people in Houston, Texas, remained without electricity on Thursday, while people across the Mississippi and Ohio Valley, as well as the U.S. Northeast, are reeling from the impacts of tornadoes and flooding due to Beryl’s remnants.

As the clean-up and recovery efforts continue, Beryl’s toll is becoming clearer, with the confirmed death toll now standing at 33. Six were killed in Venezuela, 1 in Grenada, 2 in Carriacou, 6 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 4 in Jamaica, and within the United States, at least 11 in the Greater Houston area, 1 in Louisiana, and 2 in Vermont.

Rubble-strewn streets of Hillsborough, Carriacou, reveal the devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl.

On July 1st, during the morning, Hurricane Beryl hit north of Grenada and south of St. Vincent, swallowing the Grenadines in Category 4-force winds of 240 KM/H and higher gusts.

At 11:10 AM, Beryl made its first landfall on Carriacou Island, Grenada, becoming the strongest hurricane by wind speed to ever affect the tri-island state. Severe damage was reported across northern Grenada, Petite Martinique, where 100% of buildings were damaged, and Carriacou.

In Grenada, one death has been reported after a tree fell on a home at River Road, St. George, while in neighboring Carriacou, two deaths were recorded.

While there were no reported deaths in Petite Martinique, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) reported that all of the island’s buildings suffered damage. Officials said a state of emergency remains in effect for Carriacou and Petite Martinique, and unauthorized travel to the areas is prohibited.

Hurricane Beryl pummeled buildings in Clifton, Union Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 4th, 2024. Beryl also tore up houses and stripped trees in Mayreau, one of the smallest inhabited islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. (AP)

Six people have been confirmed killed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to the country’s Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.

“I have been advised that there are six deaths resulting from Beryl.” Gonsalves said on NBC Radio on Wednesday.

During the passage of Hurricane Beryl on Monday, July 1st, 49-year-old Philbert Bowens was in his home in Union Island when his roof blew off, and he was struck in the chest by debris. He died at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. The second death is James Hazell of Bequia, but the exact cause of death is unknown at this time.

Of the remainder, one man is said to have been crushed when part of his home fell on him, while two other men were fatally injured by flying debris. A fourth man sustained an injury to his hand and reportedly bled out.

The names of the victims have not been released by Vincentian authorities. However, the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force has issued a public service announcement requesting relatives of deceased persons to come forward to assist them in identifying remains, including those who perished as a result of Hurricane Beryl.

Beryl stayed to the south of mainland St. Vincent, but the Grenadines were not spared, according to CDEMA. Union Island sustained significant damage, with 98% of the building stock damaged or destroyed, while in Canouan and Mayreau, 90% of the housing stock and buildings were damaged. Palm Island suffered extensive damage to the resort and the island’s desalination plant, with 80% of the buildings on Petite St. Vincent extensively damaged or destroyed. Nearly 10% of homes and buildings on Bequia suffered roof damage, with minimal damage reported on Mustique.

Aftermath of devastating flooding in Cumanacoa, Sucre, northeastern Venezuela on July 2nd, 2024 (Reuters)

While northern Venezuela was never directly threatened by Hurricane Beryl, outer bands from the system led to devastating flooding. Over 29,000 people were affected, and 145 businesses experienced a total loss after the Manzanares River swept through the small town of Cumanacoa in Sucre, northern Venezuela.

Six people were swept away, whose bodies have been found and identified. The authorities have identified the deceased as Andrés Rafael Vallenilla, 64 years old; Dilia Carpintero, 77; Aníbal Eduardo Barreto, 35; Antonio Rafael Vallenilla, 73; Leandro Daniel Cortez, 50; and Luisa Beltrana Carpintero, 53 years old.

A woman walks past a food stall destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in the fishing settlement of Rocky Point, Clarendon, Jamaica, on Thursday, July 4th, 2024. (AP Photo/Collin Reid)

Jamaica was scraped by Hurricane Beryl’s northern eyewall as it hugged the island’s south coast on July 3rd at Category 4 strength, two days after it devastated the Windwards. Before making it to Jamaica, it became the earliest recorded Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic by two weeks at 11:00 PM July 1st, with the record being formerly held by Hurricane Emily on July 17th, 2005.

Strong winds caused significant damage across Jamaica, with four deaths recorded.

The first death was a 26-year-old woman from Hanover who was killed by a falling tree limb as Beryl’s winds increased across Jamaica on the evening of July 3rd. Acting Director-General at Jamiaca’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, Richard Thompson, said, “It was confirmed, a lady out in Westmoreland, a tree came down on her house, and it was confirmed by the Ministry of Health that the person had passed.” The Corporate Communications Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force said that Sterling was standing outside her house in Green Island, Hanover, when a section of the tree hit her around 5:00 PM.

The second death was a 20-year-old man, who reportedly attempted to retrieve a football from a gully that was washed away by flood waters in the community of Havanna, Arnett Gardens, St Andrew, on July 3rd. It was alleged that Moncrieffe was among a group of men playing football in the community when the incident happened. According to information received from the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s communication network, the body was recovered from the Shoemaker Gully on Half Way Tree Road in St. Andrew on July 11th.

Jamaica’s third death occurred the day after Beryl, on Thursday, July 4th, when an 80-year-old resident of Back Up Resource in southern Manchester died after one of the walls of his house collapsed on him. He was taken to the Mandeville Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The island’s fourth death was an elderly woman, Icilda “Miss Icy” James, who was discovered in a nearby pond on July 6th. According to the Jamaica Observer, The elderly woman’s badly decomposed body, initially mistaken for rubbish Hurricane Beryl washed into a gully, was discovered in Dumfries, St James.

Hurricane Beryl made another landfall at 6:05 AM on July 5th on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula just northeast of Tulum, with maximum sustained winds of 175 KM/H. While damage was reported across Cancun and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, no deaths were reported.

Hurricane Beryl caused wind damage in League City, Texas, on July 8th, 2024.  (League City)

Hurricane Beryl intensified until it made landfall across southeast Texas at 4:00 AM on July 8th, with maximum sustained winds of 130 KM/H. Hurricane-force winds swept across the sprawling metropolitan area, damaging thousands of structures and critically damaging a power grid that had already been weakened by a powerful windstorm called a derecho weeks earlier.

As of July 11th, 11 deaths have been reported across the Greater Houston area linked to Hurricane Beryl

1. High water crossing at 2600 North Main Street: Houston police report a 77-year-old man attempting to drive across a bridge at White Oak Bayou. According to FOX26, a local outlet in Houston, it appeared the man drove onto a curb to cross the high water, but the bayou’s current pushed the man’s car against the wall, submerging the vehicle.
2. Security Officer Drowns: Houston Mayor John Whitmire said a Tier 1 civilian employee, 54-year-old Information Security Officer Russell Richardson of the Houston Police Department, died while driving to work near 300 Houston Avenue. According to the mayor, he was coming off of I-45 when he got into floodwaters at the Houston Avenue underpass. 
3. Deadly fire in Southeast Houston: Mayor Whitmire also said one person died in a fire in Southeast Houston. He said the fire was believed to have been caused by lightning and was believed to be storm-related. The person who died has not been identified.
4. Man dies after tree falls on Humble-area home: A 53-year-old man lost his life when an oak tree fell on his house during Hurricane Beryl in the 20900 block of Heather Grove Ct., Atacocita. The incident occurred as the man was inside the house with his family in Kings River Village, seeking shelter from the storm. Authorities said the man’s wife and children, who were also inside the home, escaped without injury.
5. Grandmother killed by fallen tree in Harris County: A 73-year-old woman, Maria Laredo, died after a tree fell through her north Harris County home in the 17400 block of Rustic Canyon Trail as Hurricane Beryl moved through the area.
6. Elderly woman drowned in Fort Bend County: Fort Bend County Sheriff Eric Fagan confirmed that one person died in the county. According to the sheriff, an elderly woman went out in the storm, became disoriented, fell into a pool, and drowned.
7. Montgomery County man killed by fallen tree: A man in his forties, in New Caney, was killed by a fallen tree. He was reportedly using a tractor to move debris off the roadway when the wind picked back up. A large tree toppled, landing on the man and the tractor.
8. Tree falls on home: A man died after being trapped under debris from a tree falling on a home in the 20900 block of Heather Grove Court in Humble.
9. Three killed in Harris, Galveston County: Authorities report two people died due to carbon monoxide poisoning from generators but were unable to provide further details. The third death, according to the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office, was a 71-year-old woman who died in Crystal Beach after she lost power and her oxygen mask ran out.

Immediately after the storm, oppressive heat moved in across Texas, prompting heat advisories for the region. To date, there have been no reports of any heat-related deaths in Houston.

Beryl eventually became a post-tropical cyclone as it tracked across the United States, but also became a prolific tornado-maker with at least 52 tornadoes confined as of the night of July 11th. 110 tornado warnings were issued on July 8 alone, the most of any July day. The outbreak also set new records for tornado warning issuances in a single day for the National Weather Service Offices in Shreveport and Buffalo, New York, at 67 and 9, respectively.

The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado, spawned by Beryl’s remnants, led to one fatality – a 30-year-old woman on East Linton Road when a tree fell on a mobile home, killing her and injuring her two children.

Debris is strewn about a bridge about 4 miles outside Plainfield, Vt., on Thursday, July 11th, following flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP)

The remnants of Hurricane Beryl dumped heavy rain on Vermont, washing away much of an apartment building, knocking out bridges and cutting off towns, and retraumatizing a state still recovering from catastrophic floods that hit a year ago to the day.

Vermont’s first death was a driver who was swept away in his vehicle by floodwaters Thursday morning in Lyndonville, Lt. Charles Winn of the Vermont State Police said. The driver ignored bystanders’ warnings to turn around and continued through the roadway, which was covered by several feet of moving water.

Authorities found the vehicle later in the day, Winn said. The driver’s body was recovered several hours later after floodwaters had receded. His name has not been released.

The second death, another man, identified as Dylan Kempton, 33, was riding an all-terrain vehicle late Wednesday when it was swept away by floodwaters in Peacham, Vermont State Police said in a statement. His body was recovered on Thursday morning.

More than 100 people were rescued by swift-water teams during the worst of the rainfall, which started Wednesday and continued into Thursday, officials said. In Plainfield, residents of a six-unit apartment building had mere minutes to evacuate before water destroyed it, the town’s emergency management director said.