Thousands of tourists, many of them Canadians, are taking shelter in the Riviera Maya region as Hurricane Beryl slams into the Yucatan Peninsula.
NBC News said up to 10 inches of rain is expected, with some flash flooding possible on the peninsula.
Hurricane warnings had been issued for the Riviera Maya from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancún, including the island of Cozumel. NBC reports that Mexico called out its military to get visitors off the beaches on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Beryl’s destruction has left at least 10 people dead in the Caribbean and Venezuela. It also wiped out 80 to 90% of homes and other buildings on a number of small islands in the southeast Caribbean, including Carriacou and Petite Martinique in Grenada and Union Island, Palm Island and Mayreau in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The CHTA and Caribbean tourism groups have launched an appeal for donations to help people on the stricken islands.
Authorities said roughly 100 flights have been cancelled on 05JUL at CUN, while nine were cancelled at Tulum’s TQO.
Nearly a dozen flights to Mexico and Jamaica were cancelled by Sunwing, Air Canada, and WestJet from YYZ, YVR, and YYC on 05JUL. The Toronto Pearson website showed Sunwing flight 780 to Montego Bay as cancelled for 06JUL.
WestJet has a travel advisory out for CUN today, advising customers that its Hurricane/Tropical Storm promise has been announced.
“This may cause delays or cancellations. We advise all guests to check the status of their flights prior to leaving for the airport.”
Air Canada has advisories for travel to CUN and TQO on 05JUL, as well as for MBJ and KIN. Air Canada has posted advisories for CUN and TQO again for 06JUL, and for TQO for 07JUL. AC states it “has revised its ticketing policy to make it easier for customers travelling on an affected flight to make changes to their booking without penalty, space permitting.”
Beryl passed just south of the Cayman Islands on 04JUL, bringing nearly a half-foot of rain. “Low-lying neighbourhoods experienced flooding … but overall, the Cayman Islands fared well, avoiding a direct hit from Beryl,” the Cayman Compass reports.
Beryl slid more than 100 km south of Jamaica, sparing the country from what could’ve been an unmitigated disaster. Still, CNN reports that the storm is one of the strongest to impact Jamaica in more than 15 years.
The BBC said hundreds of thousands of homes in Jamaica remain without power in the wake of the storm.
Earlier in the week, Beryl was the earliest Category 5 on record in the Atlantic.
The hurricane season has just started, and some experts are extremely worried about what might happen when Atlantic Ocean waters get even warmer.
