As of Friday evening it looked like Hurricane Beryl would deliver only a glancing blow to Puerto Rico come Monday/National Hurricane Center

Beryl, the first hurricane of the season, is heading for Puerto Rico, and National Park Service staff there are ready just in case the storm stays on track and arrives Monday.

As of Friday evening, the storm was small, just a Category 1 hurricane, as opposed to the Category 4 and 5 storms named Maria and Irma that crashed through the Caribbean last September. Beryl, which had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph at 5 p.m. Eastern Friday, was expected to throttle back and be a tropical storm by the time it reached Puerto Rico on Monday afternoon.

Unless it changes directions by then, the hurricane was expected to deliver only a glancing blow to Puerto Rico. It was not expected to hit Virgin Islands National Park in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"All parks have began their storm preparations per our 'severe storm management plan," Randy Lavasseur, superintendent of the Caribbean parks, said Friday evening in an email. "We have stood up all (incident management teams) in each park. On Monday we will be in full (incident command system) mode."

Weakening is expected once Beryl reaches the eastern Caribbean Sea on Monday, but the system may not degenerate into an open trough until it reaches the vicinity of Hispaniola and the central Caribbean Sea.--National Hurricane Center, Friday evening

It took months for national park units in the Caribbean to recover from Irma and Maria last fall.