Hurricane Beryl headed toward the Cayman Islands and Mexico on Thursday after leaving a trail of destruction across southern Jamaica, killing at least two people on the island, downing power lines and leaving hundreds homeless and in shelters.
Jamaican police told NBC News that a man and a woman have died as a result of the storm in the past 24 hours. The man, 26, was swept away by floodwaters in the capital, Kingston, on Wednesday night.
“He was playing football with friends at the mini-stadium when the ball went out and he tried to retrieve it,” police said. A search is underway for another man swept away by the flood waters, they added.
This brings the total number of deaths this week from Beryl in the Caribbean to nine.
The storm weakened to Category 2, with sustained winds of 110 mph, and moved away from the Cayman Islands, where a hurricane warning was dismissed Thursday as Beryl moved west.
High winds, storm surges, damaging waves, 4 to 6 inches of rain and flooding are all expected in the Cayman Islands and parts of Mexico and Belize starting Thursday night.
Some communities on Mexico’s Caribbean coast were evacuated and sea turtle eggs were removed from beaches before a storm surge destroyed them. A hurricane warning was issued for the Yucatan Peninsula, along the coast from Cancun to Costa Maya.
Mexican Navy officers have asked residents of tourist areas, in Spanish and English, to prepare for the storm’s arrival.
Jamaica’s hurricane warning has been lifted, but a flash flood warning has been put in place until 5 a.m. ET as heavy rains continued to fall after the storm passed.
“It’s terrible. Everything is gone. I’m at home and I’m scared,” Amoy Wellington, a 51-year-old cashier who lives in Top Hill, a rural farming community in southern St. Elizabeth Parish, told Reuters. “It’s a disaster.”
Newlyweds Casey and Warner Haley of Knoxville, Tennessee, told NBC News that after their wedding Saturday, they were told to retreat to their Montego Bay resort.
“Yesterday morning the weather was perfect. We went snorkeling and kayaking, and when we came back the forecast had changed,” Casey, 23, said in a phone interview Wednesday.
The couple said they immediately contacted their travel agent but were told no flights were available. At the airport, they were told the same thing.
“It was literally an end-of-the-world scene,” Casey said. “We went to all the flight counters, just saying, ‘Hey, can you take us anywhere, especially in the United States, but literally anywhere?’ And they all said, ‘No, we’re all booked.’”
Beryl is expected to reach Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday before heading south into the Gulf of Mexico early Saturday. It is not yet clear what effect it might have on the Texas Gulf Coast, where coastal residents have been urged to be “vigilant” over the holiday weekend.
The National Hurricane Center warned Thursday that the storm could strengthen over warm Gulf waters and reach the United States at or near hurricane force.
“Nearly all model forecasts show the system reaching near hurricane strength as Beryl approaches the western Gulf Coast, and that is also true of the official forecast,” the center said early Thursday.
The center added that regardless of the hurricane’s track, rip currents could cause “life-threatening beach conditions” starting Friday night and continuing through the weekend along the Gulf Coast.
The damage to some of the smaller Caribbean islands has been extensive. Michelle Forbes, director of the National Emergency Management Organization in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said about 95 percent of homes on Mayreau and Union Islands have been damaged or destroyed.
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent, said in a radio interview Wednesday that it would take a “Herculean effort” to rebuild Union Island.
