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Authorities say at least 11 people have so far died from the storm across Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and in northern Venezuela.
The toll could rise as communications are restored and more reports come in from islands devastated by flooding and powerful winds.
The entire state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun, was bracing for the storm, Governor Mara Lezama said in a video posted on X.
“Let’s take all measures of prevention and care because the winds and rains will be felt throughout the state. At this time no one should be away from home,” Lezama said.
At Cancun international airport, at least 100 flights were canceled on Thursday as tourists scrambled to catch the last ones out.
Stragglers walked on the beach in Cancun on Thursday evening as winds began picking up. In nearby Playa del Carmen, police blocked off beach entrances with yellow caution tape to dissuade visitors ahead of Beryl’s arrival.
Earlier on Thursday, officials in the Cayman Islands issued the all clear after the storm spared them the worst.
Beryl had weakened on Thursday after skirting Jamaica’s southern coast late on Wednesday as a powerful Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
“We’re happy to be alive, happy that the damage was not more extensive,” said Joseph Patterson, a bee keeper in the southwestern Jamaican town of Bogue. He described felled power lines, roads blocked with debris and “tremendous damage” to farms.
There were two deaths in Jamaica related to the storm, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in an interview on CBC on Thursday.
Some 70 per cent of the National Water Commission’s 400,000 customers were without water, a company representative said.
Still, most Jamaicans were “giving thanks,” Holness said, after having “escaped the worst”.
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