Hurricane Beryl leaves two dead in Jamaica and trail of devastation as Mexico braces for impact

Hurricane Beryl moved toward the Cayman Islands and Mexico on Thursday after leaving a trail of devastation in southern Jamaica. At least two people were killed in the island nation, power lines were downed and hundreds were left homeless and living in temporary shelters.

Jamaica police told NBC News that a man and a woman had died in the last 24 hours as a result of the storm. The 26-year-old man was swept away by floodwaters in the capital, Kingston, on Wednesday evening.

“He was playing football with friends in the mini stadium when the ball flew outside and he tried to get it back,” police said. The search for another man who was swept away by the floods is ongoing, they said.

This brings the death toll from the Beryl attack in the Caribbean this week to nine.

The storm has now weakened to a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 193 km/h. However, significant damage is still expected in the Cayman Islands, where a hurricane warning will be issued on Thursday as the eye of the storm moves south of the islands.

Strong winds, storm surges, damaging waves, 10 to 15 centimeters of rain and flooding are 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 the beaches before they could be destroyed by a storm surge.

Mexican naval officers urged people in tourist areas in Spanish and English to prepare for the storm’s arrival.

The hurricane warning for Jamaica was lifted, but a flash flood warning was in effect until 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time as heavy rain continued after the storm.

“It’s terrible. Everything is gone. I’m in my house and I’m scared,” Amoy Wellington, a 51-year-old cashier who lives in Top Hill, a rural farming community in the south of St. Elizabeth Parish, told Reuters. “It’s a disaster.”

Honeymooners Casey and Warner Haley of Knoxville, Tennessee, told NBC News that they were told to settle down at their Montego Bay resort after their wedding on Saturday.

“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 there were no flights available. They were told the same thing at the airport.

“It was literally a doomsday scenario,” Casey said. “We went to all the airline counters and asked, ‘Hey, can you take us anywhere, especially the U.S., but literally anywhere?’ And everyone said, ‘No, we’re full.'”

Beryl is expected to make landfall in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday as a Category 2 storm before moving into the southern Gulf of Mexico early Saturday. It is unclear what impact it will have on the Texas Gulf Coast, where people in coastal areas have been urged to be “weather aware” over the holiday weekend.

The National Hurricane Center warned on Thursday that the storm could strengthen again over the warm waters of the Gulf and reach the United States at or near hurricane strength.

“Almost all model forecasts show that the system will reach hurricane strength as Beryl approaches the western Gulf Coast, and the same is true of the official forecast,” the center said early Thursday.

The center added that regardless of the hurricane’s path, surf backwash could create “life-threatening beach conditions” throughout the Gulf Coast starting Friday evening and through the weekend.

The destruction on some of the smaller Caribbean islands is enormous. Michelle Forbes, head of the National Emergency Management Organization in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said about 95 percent of the houses on Mayreau and Union Island were either damaged or destroyed.

Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of St. Vincent, said in a radio interview on Wednesday that rebuilding Union Island would require a “Herculean effort.”