When Jason Gordon looked out at the sea on the morning of July 3, 2024, he saw something unsettling.

“There was a cloud out in the south, stand up— like any monster… like it a give we a sign, say yes unuh line up unuh self,” the lobster fisher and farmer recounted to Observer Online.

He was one of many Jamaicans who had grown accustomed to hurricane warnings that rarely materialised, and so he did not think Hurricane Beryl would actually strike.

“I never take it so seriously for myself, I went around and try help the elderly people batten down windows and things like that but personally, I never really think it did ago come because you know we always think Jamaica is untouchable with hurricanes,” Gordon explained.

Up to that point, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season had been relatively quiet for Jamaica. But that changed when Hurricane Beryl, born from a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa, slammed into the south coast of the island as a Category Four storm, tearing through Treasure Beach, flattening homes, ripping roofs, and devastating livelihoods.

Despite initial doubts, Gordon and other residents took precautions the day before Beryl struck. But no amount of preparation could have braced them for the storm’s intensity.

Recalling the eerie stillness ahead of the storm, one fisherman said it was almost as if the storm had “sucked up all the air”.

“It started to get dark, and I said ‘oh my God, it is coming for real,” shared Donna James, a hospitality worker.

Within hours, the storm laid waste to southern St Elizabeth and other parishes, including Manchester, Clarendon and Westmoreland.

Manager of weather services at the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, Rohan Brown, explained that the eyewall, an area of deep convection that has thunderstorms, the heaviest winds and the strongest rainfall, had moved directly over those southern coastal areas.

“A little after five, I just heard boop! And everything went…I completely lost everything, the roof went, the ceiling went with the board, it was just the plain wall,” James shared.

Similarly, Winston Moxam said, “My house top gone from about five o’clock.”

While Moxam could shelter in the single concrete-decked room in his home, James had to run to her mother’s house, where she and her elderly mom spent the evening bracing the doors so they wouldn’t blow in.

After the worst of the wind passed, James said she instructed her mother not to sleep and wrapped her in large garbage bags to protect the older woman from the rain that was coming in from “everywhere”.

“You know the funny thing, I was just smiling… because I say what is done, I can’t undo it,” James recalled.

Meanwhile, Gordon, who lost his mother two days before the July 3rd disaster hit, described it as a double hurricane.

“I have a little nine-year-old son. When the wind [rattled] the roof, you could actually see it going up and down, and the little baby held me tight, he said, ‘daddy, when is this gonna stop?” he shared.

“I was listening for the voices of people, of my neighbours, that was my [main} concern. Seeing my neighbours’ roofs start to fall? It was devastating,” said Dennis Abrahams, a director of Treasure Beach-based charity, the Breds Foundation.

When asked to describe the state of Treasure Beach in the aftermath of Beryl, the residents used phrases such as “like a person stripped naked”, “devastating”, “a plane crash”, “a bird stripped of feathers” and “house skeletons”.

Sirnal Sangster, a turnout officer at the Jamaica Fire Brigade, was scheduled for a day off on July 4th after Hurricane Beryl. That morning, Sangster walked 11 kilometres from his home, over downed trees and electricity poles, to get to the fire station located at 5 Brigade Street, Black River.

Like many others, he had just come out to see the damage, but decided he couldn’t leave his co-workers to struggle with the aftermath of the storm.

“When I came to work and saw the situation here, I just jumped in to help…We were on the road until night,” he explained. “[Firemen] went home to no house, no house top, they had to be searching for their families to see where they had gone.”

Though not first responders, a team from Breds Foundation including Abrahams, fellow director Adina Parchment, founder and local hotelier Jason Henzell, and Administrative Manager of the Treasure Beach Women’s Group, Siseenia Moxam-Nelson, were a small but significant part of the powerhouse machine that got aid flowing into Treasure Beach immediately after the storm.

“I’d say take me to your home, and when you go, you’re standing in the open, in the elements and looking at all their furniture, the bits and pieces all over. The kids standing around you, people coming over, hugging you, squeezing you [saying], ‘how can you help, are you going to help us? When?’ To listen to that each and every day for three months was not easy,” recounted Abrahams, who was one of the volunteers who conducted damage assessments.

In addition to housing loss, Parchment explained that other needs rapidly mounted for residents.

“There was no electricity, so there was no water; most drinking tanks had blown away,” she explained.

She continued, “I cannot forget this young lady…she came to me one day and said ‘miss, it’s me and my two-year-old, the roof is gone, the tarpaulin that is up there is tearing up as well; the baby has asthma, and everything in the house is wet’. There were many days…my eyes were never dry.”

With help from the Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), food packages were secured and generators were set up at the Kingfisher Plaza and throughout the community. The charity also secured a Starlink internet connection, and the Bred’s office became a hub for residents.

“This plaza would be crowded with people, charging their phones, talking to their families,” Parchment shared.

Generators were donated to the water plant in the area to get running water back into communities as well as to small businesses, especially food establishments, to provide hot meals.

So far, Breds, along with their many partners — the National Commercial Bank, who matched funding from a GoFundMe set up by Breds; Food for the Poor; American Friends of Jamaica; GEM; H&L Agro; ATL; Wards Auto Parts; Tankwell; and others — have managed to donate to the repairs of over 530 roofs.

The Government also provided in excess of $1 billion for Hurricane Beryl relief island-wide and provided aid to residents based on the extent of their housing damage.

“I can say, we in Treasure Beach, we are very blessed, meaning we get a lot of help. So we are recovering now, hoping, as I said, we don’t get any [hurricane] this year,” Gordon said.

Since the disaster, the residents who spoke to Observer Online have all recovered their homes and livelihoods, though James is still without electricity as she had to rebuild from scratch.

In spite of the destruction in the community, the residents were all grateful for one remarkable aspect — no lives were lost in Treasure Beach.

Now, as the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is underway, residents have a clear warning for their fellow Jamaicans.

“Take the weather forecast seriously, listen to the people when they are warning you that something is coming, don’t just watch local news, watch your international news because what happens there, happens everywhere,” Gordon advised.

James added, “Most people were laughing at that time last year, saying it’s not coming…based on that experience that we had, I know a lot of people are going to be more conscious and focused on the current season now.”

Members of the Breds Foundation Team, Adina Parchment and Dennis Abrahams (Photo: Gavin Jones)

Donna James, who lost her home and possessions during Hurricane Beryl after her roof was torn away during the storm. (Photo: Gavin Jones)

Jason Gordon, a farmer and fisherman of Treasure Beach (Photo: Gavin Jones)

Winston Moxam who partially lost his roof in Beryl (Photo: Gavin Jones)