But while we were spared, many other weren't. Hurricane Beryl grew from a relatively weak tropical depression into a full-blown major hurricane in less than two days, sending residents in its path scrambling to evacuate or find suitable shelter.
But is a category 5 hurricane in July the result of the changing climate? Shantel Neal has this story.
Hurricane Beryl broke records as being the earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane in the season, rapidly intensifying and causing millions of dollars in extensive damages to the Southern Caribbean Islands. In a press briefing today Dickon Mitchell, Prime minister of Grenada spoke passionately about the catastrophic impact of hurricane Beryl, which he says, was the consequence of climate change.
Dickon Mitchell, Prime minister, Grenada
"If you go and stand on a site where a home was destroyed in 10 or 15 seconds by the ravages of a powerful storm and you stand there with a family who have nowhere to go, no food to eat, no roof over there head and the rain is about to fall again. If that doesn't demonstrate to the world the consequences of what climate change is doing then I don't think anything else can."
"The industrialized world which basically created a modern economic system that is addicted to hydrocarbons that has warmed the earth's atmosphere, warmed the oceans and that lead to a situation where globally the entire world is suffering from cataclysmic climate events."
Colin Young, Executive Director of 5c's shared that Usually, strong storms only develop later in the season, after the seas have heated up through the summer.But exceptionally high sea surface temperatures are seen as a key reason why Hurricane Beryl has been so powerful.
Colin Young, Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC)
"One of the things you've been hearing from the beginning of the hurricane season was the forecast of how active this season would become was the issue of the ocean temperature and how warm the water would have been in the north Atlantic essentially all the way in the Caribbean all the way in the coast of Africa. In Fact interestingly this month is the 13th consecutive month of records been set in terms of warm the temperatures has been and so it's no surprise to see one that when and if there is a storms when it meet these conditions that are perfect for intensification that you see it intensifying the way Beryl did."
Young says that it is a complete injustice caused by a relatively small group of nations who aren't providing the resources or technology to help small countries and our people adapt.
Colin Young
"Countries in the region, the small island development states especially those in the Caribbean are not responsible for causing climate change as an entire region we produce less than one percent of the greenhouse gasses that cause the increasing intensity and climate related events. Hurricane being one of them but you also have floods, droughts, wildfires, all of these things are link to climate change and so what is happening is that we are paying the price, we are paying the price in live, we are paying the price in livelihood we are paying the price in not being able to reach our sustainable development aspirations because of something that some else has caused."
Beryl weakened to a tropical storm today after hitting Mexico as a category 2 hurricane. Early estimations report that at 11 people were killed in the Caribbean.
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