Canadians in Grenada and Montreal rally to help after hurricane devastation

Canadians with ties to Grenada are doing what they can to provide relief to the island nation that was devastated by a powerful hurricane this week.

Hurricane Beryl — downgraded to a Category 2 storm today as it heads toward Mexico’s Caribbean coast — claimed at least nine lives, including three in Grenada, and destroyed 95 per cent of homes on a pair of islands in neighbouring St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Lynn Kaak, who moved to Grenada from Toronto in 2018, says the Grenadian islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou have been ravaged, with some of her friends, including one fellow Canadian, losing their homes.

As a volunteer warden with the Canadian High Commission in Barbados, which offers consular assistance to Canadians in Grenada, she has been kept busy purchasing bottled water to send to the islands, a precious resource that she says is running out in the country.

Gemma Raeburn-Baynes, a public relations officer for a Grenadian cultural festival in Montreal, says her relatives' home on the northern tip of the island still stands despite suffering damage, but the storm tore the roof off their furniture business.

Raeburn-Baynes says the Grenadian community in Canada has rallied to raise funds for people affected by the hurricane and that the festival scheduled to kick off next week will provide an even greater platform to raise money.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2024.

— With files from The Associated Press