Hurricane Beryl Takes Aim at the Mexican Resort of Tulum as a Category 3 Storm

TULUM, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Beryl strengthened back into a Category 3 storm and headed for what could be a direct hit on Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Tulum early Friday, where authorities urged tourists to leave white sand beaches.

Beryl was the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic before weakening to a Category 2 storm. But it regained strength late Thursday with windspeeds of 115 mph (185 kph) as it neared landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a statement late Thursday 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.”

Once a sleepy, laid-back village, in recent years Tulum has boomed with unrestrained development and now has about 50,000 permanent inhabitants and at least as many tourists on an average day. The resort now has its own international airport, but it is largely low-lying, just a few yards (meters) above sea level.

As Friday began, the storm’s center was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Tulum and was moving west at 16 mph (about 26 kph), the hurricane center said.

On Friday, Beryl was expected to weaken as it crossed over the Yucatan peninsula and re-emerge in the Gulf of Mexico, where the surprisingly resilient storm could once again become a hurricane and make a second landfall around Mexico’s border with Texas next week.

As the wind began gusting over Tulum’s beaches, four-wheelers with megaphones rolled along the sand telling people to leave.

Authorities around the Yucatan peninsula have prepared shelters, evacuated some small outlying coastal communities and even moved sea turtle eggs off beaches threatened by storm surge. In Tulum, authorities shut things down and evacuated beachside hotels.

Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said. Three other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where four people were missing, officials said.

In the Pacific, Tropical Storm Aletta was located about 245 miles (395 kilometers) west of Manzanillo and had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), and was forecast to head away from land and dissipate by the weekend.