AP – Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, jumbled fishing boats in Barbados and damaged or destroyed 95 per cent of homes on a pair of islands in St Vincent and the Grenadines before rumbling toward the Cayman Islands and taking aim at Mexico’s Caribbean coast after leaving at least seven dead in its wake.
What had been the earliest storm to develop into a Category five hurricane in the Atlantic, weakened slightly but remained a major hurricane. Its eye was forecast to pass just south of the Cayman Islands overnight.
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. Early yesterday morning, the storm’s centre was about 800 kilometres east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico. It had maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometres per hour (kph) and was moving west-northwest at 32 kph.
