Mexico City, July 6: After leaving a trail of destruction across the eastern Caribbean and at least nine people dead, Hurricane Beryl strengthened back into a Category 3 storm late Thursday as it chugged over open water toward Mexico’s resort-studded Yucatan Peninsula.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Beryl, which was the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, now had winds of 115 mph (185 kph ) after weakening earlier Thursday.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a statement saying Beryl may make a direct hit on Tulum, which, while smaller than Cancun, still holds 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.”
Jack Beven, senior hurricane specialist at the U.S. Hurricane Center, said “the biggest immediate threat now that the storm is moving away from the Cayman Islands is landfall in the Yucatan Peninsula.”
The storm’s center was about 135 miles (220 kilometers) east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico, and was moving west-northwest at 16 mph (about 26 kph), the hurricane center said.
Beryl was expected to bring heavy rain and winds to Mexico’s Caribbean coast, before crossing the Yucatan peninsula and restrengthening in the Gulf of Mexico to make a second strike on northeast Mexico.