Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, battered fishing boats in Barbados and damaged or destroyed 95 percent of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before barreling toward the Cayman Islands and heading for Mexico’s Caribbean coast, killing at least seven people.
The storm, the earliest to reach Category 5 status in an Atlantic season, weakened slightly but remained a strong hurricane. Its center was expected to pass overnight just south of the Cayman Islands.
Mexico’s popular Caribbean coast prepared shelters, evacuated some small towns and even moved sea turtle eggs from beaches under threat of storm surge, though nightclubs in Playa del Carmen and Tulum gave tourists one more night to go out.
The Mexican Navy patrolled areas like Tulum, telling tourists in English and Spanish to prepare for the storm.
The storm was centered about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico, early Thursday. It had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 21 mph (32 kph). Beryl was expected to make landfall in a sparsely populated area of lagoons and mangroves south of Tulum early Friday, likely as a Category 2 storm. It was then expected to cross the Yucatan Peninsula and regain strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico for a second landfall on Mexico’s northeast coast near the Texas border.
The storm has already shown its destructive potential across a long stretch of the southeastern Caribbean.
Beryl’s centre brushed the southern coast of Jamaica on Wednesday, causing power outages and ripping off roofs. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Jamaica had not seen “the worst of what could happen.”
“We can do everything humanly possible and leave the rest to God,” Holness said.
Several roads in inland settlements were affected by fallen trees and power poles, while some communities in the northern part of the country were left without electricity, according to the government information service.
The hardest blow may have come earlier in Beryl’s path, when it struck two small islands in the Lesser Antilles.
About 95 percent of homes on Mayreau and Union islands had been damaged, said Michelle Forbes, director of the National Emergency Management Organization in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Three deaths were reported in Grenada and Carriacou and one in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said. Three other people were killed in northern Venezuela, where four people were missing, authorities said.
One of the deaths in Grenada occurred after a tree fell on a home, Environment Minister Kerryne James told The Associated Press.
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has vowed to rebuild the archipelago.
The last Category 3 or higher hurricane to hit the southeastern Caribbean was Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
In Cancun on Wednesday afternoon, Donna McNaughton, a 43-year-old Scottish cardiologist, was taking the storm’s arrival in stride.
Her return flight wasn’t until Monday, so she planned to follow her hotel’s recommendation to wait it out.
“We’re not too scared. It will subside,” he said. “And in Scotland we’re used to wind and rain anyway.”
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