Hurricane Beryl Weakens Temporarily After Killing at Least 9

Storm heads toward Mexico, should pick up strength over the Gulf
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 4, 2024 1:30 AM CDT
Updated Jul 4, 2024 4:00 PM CDT
Hurricane Beryl Still on Path of Destruction After Killing at Least 7
A Mexican soldier stands guard on a beach ahead of Hurricane Beryl's expected arrival, in Cancun, Mexico, Wednesday, July 3, 2024.   (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, jumbled fishing boats in Barbados, and damaged or destroyed 95% of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before rumbling past the Cayman Islands and taking aim at Mexico's Caribbean coast. The hurricane left at least nine people dead in its wake. What had been the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic weakened to a Category 2 by Thursday afternoon, the AP reports. "The biggest immediate threat now that the storm is moving away from the Cayman Islands is landfall in the Yucatan Peninsula" in Mexico, said Jack Beven of the US Hurricane Center.

Mexico's popular Caribbean coast prepared shelters, evacuated some small outlying coastal communities, and even moved sea turtle eggs off beaches threatened by storm surge, but in nightlife hotspots like Playa del Carmen and Tulum tourists still took one more night on the town. Mexico's navy patrolled areas like Tulum telling tourists in Spanish and English to prepare for the storm's arrival. Beryl was forecast to make landfall in a sparsely populated area of lagoons and mangroves south of Tulum in the early hours of Friday, probably as a Category 1 storm, Mexican officials said. Forecasters expect it to restrengthen over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making a second strike on Mexico's northeast coast near the Texas border.

(More Hurricane Beryl stories.)

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