For the first week of July, news headlines were dominated with stories from the Caribbean about the record-breaking Hurricane Beryl. We saw aerial shots of destroyed buildings, flooded landscapes ravaged by winds, and debris scattered everywhere.

Devastated islands included Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Jamaica, and Grenada among others. As the strongest recorded June hurricane in the Atlantic, with winds reaching up to 150 mph, Beryl left a trail of destruction, impacting thousands of lives and causing significant damage.

Climate change is to blame for the increase in the number of storms and their strength in the Caribbean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have roughly doubled in the past 35 years.

And as happens every hurricane season, the Caribbean diaspora goes through a collective trauma watching disasters unfold on TV and hearing stories of survival from family and friends back home. But when the hurricane has moved on, so do the headlines, leaving countless families picking up the literal pieces of their lives.