A conclave of religious leaders who have engaged in ongoing prayers as Hurricane Beryl continues to make a furious beeline for the island have forecast that the country will be spared the brunt of the system’s fury. However, they insist that Jamaicans must view the powerful cyclone as a divine warning and repent.

“A couple of us leaders have gotten together and prayed; we have prayed and appealed to the mercies of God and stood in the authority He has given to us; we can speak to nature by the authority of God. We have prayed and we believe that the eye of this hurricane will not hit us in the way that it is set right now, we have spoken to it, it will move to the south back into the sea and dissipate there because of God’s love and mercy and grace towards us,” the Reverend Al Miller, founder of Whole Life Ministries and senior pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle Ministries, told the Jamaica Observer late Tuesday afternoon.

Miller, who was speaking on behalf of the group of 20 church leaders, made the declaration even as the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, moments before, advised that Hurricane Beryl had been downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph and was expected to weaken even further as it barrelled towards Jamaica. The Met Service said, although the hurricane had lost intensity slightly, the catastrophic system was still powering through the Caribbean and was still expected to make landfall in southern Jamaica on Wednesday.

Initial forecasts had shown the centre of the hurricane passing south of the island; however, later official forecasts from the National Hurricane Center in the US had shown the centre of Beryl making landfall.

Miller, who said the leaders will continue praying, urged Jamaicans to remain in preparation mode and agonised that the nation has adopted a cavalier attitude because of the number of times it has been spared the full brunt of disasters.

“What we don’t want this nation to miss is whenever God has been merciful to us we take it for granted. We just go back to our comfort zone and think it’s okay. In everything God is always speaking. Our nation must know that it is righteousness that exalts a nation, sin is a reproach to any people,” Miller intoned.

“Whenever a nation of individuals violates consistently the principles of righteousness then they will suffer the natural consequences; it is just the law of cause and effect. It is going to have negative impact; when that evil builds up then we see natural disasters of a serious magnitude. This is what is happening to us, this is why people must believe and live rightly because sin is a reproach,” Miller told the Observer.

“There is no question of our sin, our rebellion against God, our treatment of each other, our pride and our idolatry does cause nature to respond, and when man violates the Earth, nature is a judge that rises up and that’s what’s behind natural disasters when they happen,” Miller continued.

The senior pastor, in the meantime, made this appeal to the country, “that the hurricane’s eye will move away from us and again the goodness of God’s grace will bring favour to the nation, but the nation must know that God is calling us to repentance, to a better and higher way. God will spare us because of His mercies and goodness, not because we deserve it. But we must begin to return to the values, the nation must listen and heed the warning; we will not just keep getting away, we must shape up”.

According to data from the National Library of Jamaica, the earliest reference to a hurricane in Jamaica dates back to 1559 when a hurricane caused severe damage to the island’s infrastructure.

On September 12, 1988 Jamaica suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Gilbert — the seventh named storm that year. Packing sustained winds of 201 km/h (125 mph) and gusts of up to 241 km, Gilbert lashed the entire country for up to 12 hours.

The banana industry lost some $400 million in export earnings. The tourism and mining industries were also disrupted, hundreds of people were left homeless, and thousands were forced to seek refuge in emergency shelters, which soon became overcrowded. Many designated shelters were destroyed; however, the number of deaths, 45, was low considering the intensity of the hurricane, and hardly any injured. It was the first hurricane that had direct impact to the island since 1951.

On Tuesday, director of the Meteorological Services Branch Evan Thompson said the conditions brought by Hurricane Beryl could be similar to those of Gilbert.

“Just for a point of reference… some of you recall Hurricane Gilbert or you have seen images of Hurricane Gilbert way back in 1988. That was a Category 3 hurricane, and if you think about Hurricane Ivan that occurred in 2004, that system — the centre was just off the coast — but it was a Category 4 hurricane,” Thompson said. He also noted Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which was a Category 1, that moved across eastern parishes. “With that framework, we know that this is a dangerous situation. Category 3 means a dangerous situation. Category 2 also is as dangerous, as a lesser-strength hurricane, but still causes major impacts over the island. We have to prepare ourselves for whatever will come our way,” Thompson warned.

Beryl became the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season early Saturday morning and quickly strengthened to Category 4, the first ever to reach that level in June, according to National Hurricane Center records.