MATAGORDA, Texas — On Sunday, Beryl began lashing Texas with rain and increasing winds as coastal residents boarded up their windows, issued evacuation orders for beach towns and braced for the fierce storm that has already cut a deadly swath through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Although Beryl remained a tropical storm on its technique to Texas on Sunday, it threatened to possibly regain hurricane strength in the nice and cozy waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall early Monday. The storm was expected to make landfall mid-Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Houston, but authorities warned that the trail could still change.

Authorities in Texas warned that the storm would cause power outages and flooding, but in addition expressed concern that not enough coastal residents and beachgoers in Beryl's path heeded the warnings and left the country.

“One of the things that concerns us a little bit is we've looked at all the roads leading away from the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who’s serving because the state's acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling abroad. “So we're not seeing a lot of people leaving.”

Along the Texas coast, many residents and business owners took the same old storm precautions but in addition expressed uncertainty concerning the intensity of the storm.

In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May was attaching plywood to the windows of his utility company and said he was not frightened concerning the potential storm surge, recalling that his company had been spared flooding during a previous hurricane that brought a 20-foot storm surge.

“When you're in the city, you know that if you're in the lower areas, you obviously have to get out,” he said.

Further down the coast in Freeport, Mark Richardson, a 64-year-old retiree, said homeowners were busy “tying everything up” and feared Beryl would make people uncertain where on the Texas coast it will make landfall. He spent Sunday morning on the beach and said ocean swells were rising quickly.

“The ocean gets very angry very quickly,” he said.

Beryl was the primary storm to grow to be a Category 5 hurricane within the Atlantic. It claimed not less than 11 lives because it passed through the Caribbean on its technique to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with its devastating winds and storm surge, which was amplified by the record-breaking Atlantic heat.

Three times in its week-long lifetime, Beryl has reached wind speeds of 35 mph (56 km/h) inside 24 hours or less, which meets the weather service's official definition of rapid intensification.

Experts say Beryl's explosive development into an early storm of unprecedented magnitude shows how hot the Atlantic and Caribbean are getting and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the remainder of the storm season.

Authorities in Texas warned people along your complete coast of possible flooding, heavy rain and wind. The hurricane warning prolonged from Baffin Bay south of Corpus Christi to Sargent south of Houston.

Beryl looms as one other potential heavy rain event in Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power and flooded neighborhoods within the nation's fourth-largest city. A flash flood warning was issued for a large swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

Possible storm surges of between 4 and seven feet (1.22 and a couple of.13 meters) above ground were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings prolonged to the identical coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, far stronger than the expected intensity of Beryl by the point it reached landfall.

For those attempting to catch a flight out of the region, it was all but unimaginable given Beryl's proximity. Hundreds of flights from Houston's two largest business airports were delayed and dozens more were canceled by Sunday afternoon, in accordance with data from FlightAware.

In Corpus Christi, authorities urged visitors to cancel their trips and return home as early as possible. Residents were advised to secure their homes by boarding up windows if mandatory and using sandbags to guard them from possible flooding.

An Ace Hardware store in the town has seen nonstop traffic for the past three days as customers bought tarps, rope, duct tape, sandbags and generators, worker Elizabeth Landry said Saturday.

“They're just worried about the wind and the rain,” she said. “They want to be prepared just in case.”

The White House said on Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had sent emergency responders, search and rescue teams, bottled water and other supplies to the coast.

Beryl hit Mexico earlier this week as a Category 2 hurricane, downing trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm because it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

Before reaching Mexico, Beryl caused devastation in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Three people were killed in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela, and two in Jamaica.

According to hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, Beryl can be the tenth hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 and the fourth within the last 25 years.

Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Associated Press author Margery A. Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and radio reporter Julie Walker in New York contributed to the report.

TULUM, Mexico — Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, snarled fishing boats in Barbados and damaged or destroyed 95 percent of homes on two islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before roaring past the Cayman Islands and taking aim at Mexico's Caribbean coast early Thursday morning, killing not less than nine people.

The storm, which was the primary to become a Category 5 hurricane within the Atlantic, weakened to a Category 2 hurricane within the afternoon.

Jack Beven, senior hurricane specialist on the U.S. Hurricane Center, said “the greatest immediate threat now that the storm is moving away from the Cayman Islands is landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula” in Mexico.

The storm was centered roughly 215 kilometers west of the island of Grand Cayman and 445 kilometers east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico. It had maximum sustained winds of 175 km/h and was moving west-northwest at 30 km/h.

On Wednesday afternoon, Beryl's eyewall grazed the south coast of Jamaica. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Jamaica had not yet experienced the “worst that could happen.”

On Thursday morning, telephone poles and trees blocked the streets in Kingston.

Authorities confirmed that a young man died on Wednesday when he was swept right into a sewer while attempting to rescue a ball. A girl also died when a house collapsed on her.

Residents took advantage of a break within the rain to start clearing debris.

Sixty-five percent of the island is without electricity, there isn’t any water connection and telecommunications are limited. Government officials are currently assessing the damage, but that is hampered by the dearth of communication, especially within the southern communities which were most affected.

Visiting the south-central community of Clarendon, residents were attempting to repair damaged roofs and clear fallen trees. Many roads in the world were partially blocked by fallen power and telecommunications poles.

Seymour, armed with a machete and attempting to clear the rubble with other residents, was grateful that he and his neighbors were spared.

“I'm just grateful to be alive, even though Beryl destroyed many roofs and we have no water or light (electricity),” he said, declining to present his last name.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said: “Weakening is expected over the next one to two days. However, Beryl is expected to remain a hurricane until it makes landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Emergency shelters have been arrange on Mexico's popular Caribbean coast, some small, distant coastal communities have been evacuated, and even sea turtle eggs have been faraway from beaches threatened by the storm surge.

In Playa del Carmen on Thursday, most stores were closed and a few boarded up their windows as tourists jogged by and a few locals walked their dogs in the intense sunshine. In Tulum, the Mexican Navy patrolled the streets, telling tourists in Spanish and English to organize for the storm's arrival. Everything was to be closed by noon.

Francisco Bencomo, general manager of the Umi hotel in Tulum, said all guests had left. “Under these conditions, we will be completely locked down,” he said, adding there aren’t any plans to welcome guests back before July 10.

“We've turned off gas and electricity. We also have an emergency floor that two maintenance people will cordon off,” he said from the hotel. “We've put them in the room furthest from the beach and the windows.”

“I hope that the impact on the hotel is as minimal as possible, that the hurricane passes quickly through Tulum and that it is nothing serious,” he said.

Myriam Setra, a 34-year-old tourist from Dallas, Texas, was eating a sandwich on the beach on Thursday. Her flight home was scheduled for Friday, but Beryl had not persuaded her to depart early.

“I thought I'd rather stay in Mexico one more day than go back to the U.S. two days early,” Setra said. “So I went out and bought some groceries. I thought we'd get the last of the sun today. And then we'll just hole up and stay inside until it's hopefully over.”

Cayman Islands Prime Minister Juliana O'Connor thanked residents and visitors on Thursday for contributing to the “collective calm” ahead of Beryl by adhering to storm protocols.

“We have done everything we can to address the various challenges that lie ahead,” she said at a press conference.

The head of Mexico's civil protection agency, Laura Velázquez, said Thursday that Beryl is predicted to be a Category 1 hurricane when it hits a comparatively sparsely populated stretch of Mexico's Caribbean coast south of Tulum early Friday.

But when Beryl resurfaces within the Gulf of Mexico a day later, it is predicted to achieve hurricane strength again and make landfall right on the Mexican-American border near Matamoros, an area that was already hit by Tropical Storm Alberto in June.

Velázquez said temporary shelters were being arrange in schools and hotels just in case. Her efforts to evacuate some high-risk villages – akin to Punta Allen, which sits on a narrow spit of land south of Tulum – have been only partially successful.

The storm had already shown its destructive potential in an extended strip of the southeastern Caribbean.

The worst probably happened earlier in Beryl's trajectory, when it collided with two small islands within the Lesser Antilles.

Three people were reportedly killed in Grenada and Carriacou, and one other in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said. Three more deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where 4 individuals are missing, authorities said.

In Grenada, one person died when a tree fell on a house, Environment Minister Kerryne James told the Associated Press.

The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, has promised to rebuild the archipelago.