After Hurricane Beryl hit the Mexican vacation destination of Tulum, it moved over the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico on Friday, July 5th, and began entering the Gulf of Mexico, prompting officials in Texas to urge coastal residents to prepare for the storm.
According to reports from the Associated Press, early on Friday morning, Beryl struck Tulum as a Category 2 hurricane, knocking down trees but causing no casualties. As it traversed the Yucatan Peninsula, it weakened to a tropical storm. The National Hurricane Center in the United States predicts that the storm will regain hurricane strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and could hit southern Texas late Sunday or early Monday.
Hurricane Beryl will be the earliest Category 5 storm to develop in the Atlantic this year. Earlier this week, it resulted in at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean islands.
By Friday afternoon, the storm center was located in Progreso, Yucatan State, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, about 580 miles (935 kilometers) southeast of Brownsville, Texas. The National Hurricane Center stated that Hurricane Beryl was moving northwest at a speed of 15 miles per hour (approximately 24 kilometers per hour) with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour).
Meteorologists say that once in the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Beryl could regain wind speeds of up to 90 miles per hour (150 kilometers per hour) before potentially making landfall. Hurricane warnings are in effect from the Rio Grande to Sargent, just south of Houston, Texas.
Some counties in Texas have issued voluntary evacuation orders for low-lying areas, with state officials urging coastal residents to prepare.
In Corpus Christi, a coastal city on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas, government officials announced that within two hours on Friday, they distributed ten thousand sandbags, depleting their supply.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick issued disaster declarations for 39 counties, allowing state and local authorities to begin planning and contracting for disaster relief efforts.
State emergency operations chief, Nim Kidd, stated that oil companies have started moving employees off coastal drilling platforms that may be in the storm’s path.