Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the Caribbean Islands During the Tropical Tropical Cyclost of July 12 – 13 p.m.

As Jamaicans hunker down for the storm, countries in the northwestern Caribbean Sea and western Gulf of Mexico are being warned to watch out for it.

The three international airports in Jamaica will be closed on Wednesday and the island’s water and electricity service will likely be off as a precautionary measure.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared a “major disaster area” and implemented an island-wide curfew from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time, based on what he called the “strength, path and potential threat” posed by Beryl.

Holness said in the video that it was to make sure that everyone is safe and prevent criminal activity during the passing of the storm.

A Hurricane Warning is in place for Jamaica and the three other Caribbean Islands where the center of the storm will pass late Wednesday or early Thursday.

Officials said about 98% of buildings on the islands — which are home to some 6,000 people — had been damaged or destroyed, including Carriacou’s main health facility, according to the New York Times. There are three storm-related deaths confirmed so far.

“The possibility that there may be more fatalities remains a grim reality as movement is still highly restricted,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Two other deaths have been reported in northern Venezuela’s Sucre state, where authorities said another five people are unaccounted for and a total of 25,000 have been affected by heavy rains, winds and river flooding from the outer bands of the storm.

Climate change and hurricanes in the Caribbean: A conversation with a Jamaican Senator and a friend of Maldace, the President of the United Nations, and the World Central Kitchen

President Biden said at the Tuesday news conference that people in impacted islands and communities are in his prayers and we stand by to help them.

The World Central Kitchen, based in D.C., announced on Tuesday that it is setting up teams to distribute food to those in need in Antigua, Grenada, and St.Vincent and the Grenadines.

“While Texans take time to enjoy the holiday weekend with family and friends, it’s important to stay weather aware, pay close attention to the rapidly-changing forecasts, and don’t be caught without an emergency plan,” said Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd.

He said that he was not expecting a hurricanes to form in the Gulf and move into the central Texas coast.

Some Jamaican officials point to a storm as an example of how countries in the developing world are being affected by climate change.

Jamaican Senator Delroy Williams told CNN the international community must do more to widen coastal cities access to climate change related funding and improve infrastructure in low-lying areas.

The conversation with Simon took on extra meaning as he was a native of Carriacou.

His late grandmother’s home was destroyed, and his parents’ property was damaged, his office told AFP. He called climate change “not a tomorrow problem.”

The economy is going through this right now. “Disasters on a scale that used to be the stuff of science fiction are becoming meteorological facts, and the climate crisis is the chief culprit.”

“With a warming climate, we should be expecting more of these storms to rapidly intensify,” says Jennifer Collins, a professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida. But while many climate models suggest that storms will gain strength more quickly as the Earth heats up, it’s still unclear whether that’s already happening. The relationship between a hotter planet and the number and timing of storms that rapidly gain strength is still an active area of research.

The strength of the tropical depression was quickly upgraded to a major storm just hours before it was due to make its first landfall.

Humans have been to blame for the warm ocean waters due to burning fossil fuels. Warm water is used as fuel for hurricanes.

“In terms of the science, it’s unfortunately kind of right in line with what we expect when we’re warming the planet and we’re warming our oceans, especially,” Garner says.

Climate change may be causing those patterns to change, because the ocean has absorbed so much of the excess heat trapped by humans.

Tom Knutson, a senior scientist at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says scientists don’t have a clear picture yet of the relationship between human-caused warming and rapid intensification. “There may be one that’s emerging, but we’re not sure.”