Hurricane Beryl closing in on Mexican resort of Tulum after lashing Jamaica
Hurricane Beryl headed for what could be a direct hit on Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Tulum early Friday, where authorities urged tourists to leave white sand beaches. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Beryl is forecast to hit Tulum with dangerous hurricane-force winds, storm surge, and damaging waves.
Beryl was the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic before weakening to a Category 2 storm. It regained strength late Thursday to gain windspeeds of 115 mph, making it a Category 3 storm as it neared landfall over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, according to the hurricane center. Then, Beryl weakened again to a Category 2 with sustained top winds of 110 mph, a notch below the 111 needed to be considered a Category 3 and major hurricane.
At 5 a.m. EDT Friday, Beryl was some 40 miles east of Tulum, traveling west-northwest at 15 mph and was expected to make landfall "in the next few hours," the hurricane center said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a statement late Thursday saying Beryl may make a direct hit on Tulum which, while smaller than Cancun, still has thousands of tourists and residents.
"It is recommendable that people get to higher ground, shelters or the homes of friends or family elsewhere," López Obrador wrote. "Don't hesitate, material possessions can be replaced."
Once a sleepy, laid-back village, Tulum has boomed in recent years with unrestrained development and now has about 50,000 permanent inhabitants and at least as many tourists on an average day. The resort now has its own international airport, but it's largely low-lying, just a few yards above sea level.
As Friday began, the storm's center was about 90 miles southeast of Tulum and was moving west at 16 mph, the hurricane center said.
Beryl was expected to emerge over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico Friday night, then move toward northeastern Mexico and southern Texas by the end of the weekend.
Tulum bracing for Hurricane Beryl
As the wind began gusting over Tulum's beaches, four-wheelers with megaphones rolled along the sand telling people to leave. Tourists snapped photos of the growing surf, but military personnel urged them to leave.
Authorities around the peninsula have prepared shelters, evacuated some small outlying coastal communities and even moved sea turtle eggs off beaches threatened by storm surge. In Tulum, authorities shut things down and evacuated beachside hotels.
Francisco Bencomo, general manager of Hotel Umi in Tulum, said all its guests had left.
"With these conditions, we'll be completely locked down," he said, adding there were no plans to have guests return before July 10.
"We've cut the gas and electricity. We also have an emergency floor where two maintenance employees will be locking down," he said from the hotel. "We have them staying in the room farthest from the beach and windows."
"I hope we have the least impact possible on the hotel, that the hurricane moves quickly through Tulum, and that it's nothing serious," he said.
Tourists were also taking precautions. Lara Marsters, 54, a therapist visiting Tulum from Boise, Idaho, said "this morning we woke up and just filled all of our empty water bottles with water from the tap and put it in the freezer ... so we will have water to flush the toilet."
"We expect that the power will go out," Marsters said. "We're going to hunker down and stay safe."
Myriam Setra, a 34-year-old tourist from Dallas, was eating a sandwich on the beach earlier Thursday, saying "figured we'd get the last of the sun in today, too. And then it's just going to be hunker down and just stay indoors until hopefully it passes."
But once Beryl re-emerges into the Gulf, forecasters say, it's again expected to build to hurricane strength and could hit right around the Mexico-U.S. border, at Matamoros. That area was already soaked last month by Tropical Storm Alberto.
Velázquez said temporary storm shelters were in place at schools and hotels but efforts to evacuate a few highly exposed villages - like Punta Allen, which sits on a narrow spit of land south of Tulum - and Mahahual, further south - had been only partially successful.
Earlier, Beryl wreaked havoc in the Caribbean and was blamed for several deaths. The hurricane damaged or destroyed 95% of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, jumbled fishing boats in Barbados and ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity in Jamaica.
Will Hurricane Beryl hit Texas?
CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reported that whether Beryl crashes into Texas depends on how much strength it loses as it goes over land, as well as conditions in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming days.
"Beryl is expected to emerge over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico Friday night and move northwestward toward northeastern Mexico and southern Texas late in the weekend," the hurricane center said Thursday evening.
One key factor will be how wind shear affects Beryl.
"Will Beryl maintain a Cat. 1 hurricane strength as it makes landfall in the Yucatan?" KHOU-TV meteorologist Kim Castro asked. "Or will the unfavorable conditions -- more sheared winds in the Caribbean -- help weaken it enough that it's not much of anything when it gets to the Gulf."
The hurricane center urged people in southern Texas to monitor Beryl's progress.
Beryl leaves trail of damage, destruction
Beryl's worst damage may be in its wake. Its eye wall brushed by Jamaica's southern coast on Wednesday afternoon while on Thursday morning, telephone poles and trees were blocking the roadways in Kingston.
Authorities confirmed a young man died on Wednesday after he was swept into a storm water drain while trying to retrieve a ball. A woman also died after a house collapsed on her.
Residents took advantage of a break in the rain to begin clearing debris.
Sixty percent of the island remained without electricity, along with a lack of water and limited telecommunications. Government officials were assessing the damage, but it was hampered by the lack of communication, mainly in southern parishes that suffered the most damage.
Some 1,432 people remained in shelters in Jamaica, like Desrine Campbell, a resident of the low-lying community of Old Harbour Bay, who wailed, "My house is almost flooded!"
Nearby, Carlton Golding said ruefully, "I lost everything this time." Golding's house was totally destroyed by the hurricane, the second time that he has suffered damage from storms.
In the south-central parish of Clarendon, residents attempted to mend damaged roofs and clear downed trees. Many roadways in the area remained partially blocked from downed electricity and telecommunication poles.
The premier of the Cayman Islands, Juliana O'Connor, thanked residents and visitors Thursday for contributing to the "collective calm" ahead of Beryl by following storm protocols.
Michelle Forbes, the St. Vincent and Grenadines director of the National Emergency Management Organization, said that about 95% of homes in Mayreau and Union Island have been damaged by Hurricane Beryl.
Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said. Three other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where four people were missing, officials said.
One fatality in Grenada occurred after a tree fell on a house, Kerryne James, the environment minister, told The Associated Press.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has promised to rebuild the archipelago.
Historic hurricane
Beryl was the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, and was only the second Category 5 storm recorded in July since 2005, according to the hurricane center.
It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane, which is a Category 3 storm or higher — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.
Beryl was also the third Category 3 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic in June, following Audrey in 1957 and Alma in 1966, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said.
"Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area," he told the AP in a phone interview earlier this week. "Unusual is an understatement," he said, calling Beryl historic.
Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.
"So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat," Lowry said of Beryl.
Beryl is the second named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Last week, Tropical Storm Alberto brought torrential flooding to portions of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. It was responsible for at least four deaths in the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon and Veracruz.
According to CBS News weather producer David Parkinson, Beryl is the farthest east a hurricane has formed in June, and one of only two to do so east of the Caribbean, with the other instance occurring in 1933. Parkinson expects Beryl to remain south of Jamaica, and forecasts that any U.S. impacts are still at least eight days away.
Warm waters are fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher.
