Caribbean nations are bracing themselves for another busy hurricane season after experiencing one of the deadliest last year, when devastating, record-breaking Hurricane Beryl slammed into the Lesser Antilles and Jamaica early in the season.

Between 17 and 19 named storms are being predicted for the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane season, according to the Colorado State University early forecast delivered in April and the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology. The latter is forecasting that nine of 19 named storms are anticipated to become hurricanes, four of them major, once the season starts on June 1.

“Though these forecasts come with some uncertainty, the region must remain vigilant and prepared, as it only takes one storm to cause a significant impact. The likelihood of storms making landfall along the U.S. coastline and within the Caribbean remains high, so we must take every necessary step to ensure the safety of our communities,” said Elizabeth Riley, the executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, CDEMA.

This year’s predictions are lower than that for the 2024 season. But they come amid a new reality, which includes Category 4 and 5 storms happening early in the season — this was the case with Beryl, which formed in the Atlantic at the end of June and slammed into Jamaica on July 1 as a Category 5 — and cuts by the Trump administration to foreign aid.

Those cuts, Riley said, have not directly affected CDEMA, which doesn’t receive U.S. funding. However, they are affecting participating countries, which rely on U.S. support for hurricane readiness and climate research.

The regional disaster assistance program, for example, was a key flagship program of the U.S. Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs and provided significant training support to participating nations. The program was initially put on a stop order as nations that are part of the 15-member Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM were preparing for this year’s hurricane season.

The freeze forced countries and CDEMA to identify alternate partners to provide support for that training, and national governments have also had to revisit budget allocations, Riley said. Among the new partners the regional agency reached out to, she said, is the European Union, which has extended access to significant forecasting, predicting, modeling products and satellite products from EU scientific organizations.

“The U.S. actions have had ripple effects across a number of our partners, including our U.N. agencies, and we’ve also seen implications for some of our civil society partners, such as the International Federation of the Red Cross,” Riley said.

She and others cautioned on Wednesday that that the slightly lower storm predictions are of little comfort to the region, which due to climate change is also experiencing more deadly floods and storms.

“As we enter the 2025 hurricane season, we’re once again reminded that our region’s vulnerability is high and the ongoing need for preparedness,” Riley said. “The predictions are clear: This season is expected to be above average in activity.”

The driving force is warmer-than-usual sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Atlantic. A warm Atlantic creates a more favorable environment for the development of storms.

To better prepare for the possibility of earlier and more powerful storms, the regional disaster management agency has taken a number of steps. Between April 2024 and March 2025, CDEMA has provided specialized training to increase the number of personnel within the Caribbean Disaster Relief Unit to over 100 police officers. There is also a mental health and psycho-social support team to assist groups handling the physical and emotional toll that disasters take. The number of Rapid Needs Assessment Team specialists also has been increased with additional personnel expected to be trained and deployed later this month.

“We are very proud of our progress as an agency and as a region, but we are also acutely aware that there’s still a lot more work to be done,” Riley said. “We must continue to focus on building resilience, enhancing preparedness, and ensuring that the Caribbean remains strong in the face of adversity.”

During a press conference on Wednesday, a number of other partnership were announced. Castor Shipping committed to support the movement of relief supplies across the region in times of disaster, and Haitian-owned Sunrise Airways agreed to provide transport for relief personnel and cargo as needed. Founder Philippe Bayard has also offered his airlines’ warehousing facilities and fleet positioning across key hubs in the region.

The United Kingdom announced the signing of an agreement to provide pre-arranged financial support for emergency response teams when a member country announces deployment and assistance. The funding amounts to about $375,000 worth of support per participating country and CDEMA also has $50,000 to start shaping up the response.

“As in the past, we commit to responding to any CDEMA request within 24 hours regardless of the availability of funds, recognizing the critical importance of timely humanitarian action,” British High Commissioner Simon Mustard said. “All of the experts tell us we’re in for another busy season.”

The agreement, Mustard said, builds on similar efforts with the regional disaster management agency that enabled responses to major events such as Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas, the Soufriere volcano eruption in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the 2021 Haiti earthquake, as well as last year’s response to Beryl, which the United Kingdom supported with over 200 responders to Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“The UK is acutely aware that improving the resilience of the Caribbean systems infrastructure and the diversity of the disaster risk financing protection must be at the core of effective disaster risk management in this region,” Mustard said.

Last year’s hurricane season was the third costliest on record, with Hurricane Beryl causing an estimated $1.5 billion in damages and 18 deaths as it barreled across the Caribbean.

The storm, which heavily affected Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, also wiped out significant percentages of the countries’ gross domestic product.

It was also a wake-up call for the implications of climate change, Riley said, noting that the Caribbean had not seen a Category 5 storm before so early in the hurricane season

“But these are some of the possibilities that the climate scientists have told us were going to be possible with climate change, and now we’re seeing it, and there’s a likelihood that we will continue to see these types of very different patterns,” she said. “Rainfall patterns have very much changed. We are seeing a lot more intensity in the rainfall events, which means that …in essence, we get a lot more rainfall occurring in shorter periods of time. And just last year, we saw, for example, major flood events taking place over one day periods. It happened in Grenada in the last quarter of last year. We had severe flooding.

“The point I’m emphasizing here is that it is important for us to follow the science, listen to the guidance from the climate scientists, and also to learn from previous events,” she added.

Haiti remains particularly vulnerable to hurricanes, rainfall and any delayed response.

“The prevailing factor in Haiti at this time is related to security and even in situations where we have no conflict, humanitarian actions are only undertaken when the security situation is stable,” Riley said.

As an institution of CARICOM, the disaster management agency would take its guidance from the political directorate with respect to Haiti, she added.

“It is very difficult to give a very definitive statement with respect to what would happen in Haiti, if, by chance, we have a significant impact this year, because we would have to do a security assessment to understand whether it’s safe to undertake humanitarian action.”

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