Beryl makes landfall in Texas

Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas this morning after regaining strength over the Gulf of Mexico. 

The deadly storm recovered to hurricane strength with 75mph winds overnight before barrelling into the Texas coast. It was expected to bring storm surge and up to 10 inches of rain over Palacios and Galveston. Houston was under a tropical storm watch and was expected to get 4-8 inches of rain. 

Beryl, which has caused seven deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage across the Caribbean, brushed past the Yucatan Peninsula on the weekend before turning across the Gulf of Mexico. After weakening to a tropical storm, it returned to hurricane strength over open water. 

The storm passed Jamaica on Thursday, but did not trigger the country’s catastrophe bond, The Gleaner reported. 

The bond was designed to provide financial protection for the issuer in the event of a Category 5 or very intense Category 4 storm, such as Beryl, a key trigger did not materialise.

While Beryl was categorised as making a hit on Jamaica, the hurricane did not make landfall, which, Minister of Finance Nigel Clarke disclosed on Friday, is required to trigger the cat bond.

“Had Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Jamaica or had Hurricane Beryl retained its intensity as observed on Tuesday (as measured by centralised air pressure), it would have certainly triggered the catastrophe bond,” Clarke said.

The blow to Jamaica was worsened by climate change, analysis from ClimaMeter has found, CNN reported. 

Modern storms like Beryl tracking close to Jamaica are capable of unloading 30% more rain and 10% stronger winds compared to similar storms from 1979 to 2001 because of human-caused climate change, the study found.

The storm drenched Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, in more than double the amount of rain it typically receives for the whole month of July in just 24 hours on Wednesday. The city also endured 12 consecutive hours of tropical-storm-force winds.

The storm killed two people in the island nation and at least seven others in the region.

“The increase in precipitation and wind speed of this type of event has been significantly intensified by human-driven climate change,” Tommaso Alberti, a researcher involved in the study said.

“This means that while we might see similar episodes with the same frequency, their intensity will be stronger, leading to catastrophic consequences for the vulnerable Caribbean Islands.”

Beryl was the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic on record.

The Cayman Islands avoided the worst of the hurricane as it passed within 50 miles of the international financial centre. While some damage was recorded on coastal housing complexes and the islands experienced heavy rainfall and high winds, the island was back in business by Friday morning. 

Aon said on Friday that the storm had caused hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of economic damage in the Caribbean. It did not release an estimate on likely damage from Texas.

Did you get value from this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.