In Treasure Beach, a small fishing and agricultural community on the coast of southern Jamaica, Hurricane Beryl started off slow. There was some breeze, and a little bit of rain.

“And then it was from zero to a hundred real quick,” said Adrian Brown, a 27-year-old bartender who grew up nearby and has lived in Treasure Beach for several years.

The winds picked up and became rougher as the storm roared overhead, tearing roofs off the homes and destroying crops. On Thursday, after Category 4 Beryl was gone, Brown rode a motorcycle to scout the damage.

Downed power lines were everywhere, making him wonder about when power would return. The streets were riddled with rippled pieces of zinc metal, a common roofing material in the Caribbean.

“There’s zinc everywhere from people’s houses,” he said, “Words don’t even do justice.”

This is just the best community in the world,” said Rebecca Wiersma, an American tour and villa operator who has lived there since 1993. “Everybody is helping each other out. Everyone just greets each other with a hug and says ‘Are you ok?’”

She told the Miami Herald about a man clearing debris on blocked streets with his backhoe since the morning; families taking in displaced neighbors who had lost their homes; villa owners sheltering staff and friends in their holiday houses.

The damage is worse than after Category 4 Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, she said, referring to the 2004 cyclone ravaged Jamaica, killed 17 people on the island and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

“Everything is devastated. It’s absolutely devastated,” she said, “I’ve lived here for 31 years and never seen it so bad.”

Despite the grim panorama, Wiersma said that if anyone could get through this devastation, it was the residents of Treasure Beach. Above all, the community was grateful that everybody had survived the storm.

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