TULUM, Mexico — Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, jumbled fishing boats in Barbados and damaged or destroyed 95% of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before rumbling past the Cayman Islands early Thursday and taking aim at Mexico’s Caribbean coast. At least nine people were killed.

What had been the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic weakened to a Category 2 by the afternoon.

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

The storm’s center was about 135 miles west of Grand Cayman island and 275 miles east-southeast of Tulum, Mexico. It had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph and was moving west-northwest at 18 mph.

Beryl’s eye wall brushed by Jamaica’s southern coast on Wednesday afternoon. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said Jamaica had not seen the “worst of what could possibly happen.”

On Thursday morning in Kingston, telephone poles and trees were blocking the roadways.

Authorities confirmed a young man died on Wednesday after he was swept into a storm water drain while trying to retrieve a ball. A woman also died after a house collapsed on her.

Residents took advantage of a break in the rain to begin clearing debris.

Sixty-five percent of the island remained without electricity, along with a lack of water and limited telecommunications. Government officials were assessing the damage, but it was hampered by the lack of communication mainly in southern parishes that suffered the most damage.

A visit to the south-central parish of Clarendon saw residents attempting to mend damaged roofs and clear downed trees. Many roadways in the area remained partially blocked from downed electricity and telecommunication poles.

Seymour, armed with a machete as he and other residents attempted to clear debris, was grateful that the lives of him and his neighbors were spared.

“I am just grateful for life although Beryl destroyed a lot of roofs and we don’t have any water or light (electricity),” he said, declining to give his last name.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said that “Weakening is forecast during the next day or two, though Beryl is forecast to remain a hurricane until it makes landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Mexico’s popular Caribbean coast prepared shelters, evacuated some small outlying coastal communities and even moved sea turtle eggs off beaches threatened by storm surge.