Matthew’s path of destruction
Florida is preparing for the worst as hurricane hits having killed more than 340, writes Scott Malone
atthew, the first major hurricane threatening a direct hit on the United States in more than 10 years, lashed Florida with heavy rains and winds yesterday after killing at least 339 people in Haiti on its destructive march north through the Caribbean.
Wind gusts of up to 100km/ h and heavy downpours were reported in several coastal communities in Florida as the eye of the Category 4 hurricane tracked along the east coast of the state yesterday.
“We are just bracing and the winds are picking up,” Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry told CNN. “A great number of our residents have taken heed to our warnings and we are certainly concerned about those that have not.”
More than 140,000 Florida households were without power, according to Governor Rick Scott. In West Palm Beach, once- lit street lights and houses went dark and Interstate 95 was empty as the storm rolled through the community of 100,000 people.
Hurricane Matthew carried extremely dangerous winds of 215km/ h as it pounded the northwestern part of the Bahamas en route to Florida’s Atlantic coast earlier, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
While Matthew’s winds had dropped yesterday, it remained a Category 4 on the five- step SaffirSimpson scale of hurricane intensity as it neared Florida, where it could either plough inland or tear along the Atlantic coast.
Few storms with winds as powerful as Matthew’s have struck Florida, and the NHC warned of “potentially disastrous impacts”. The US National Weather Service said the storm could be the most powerful to strike northeast Florida in 118 years.
Hurricane conditions were expected in parts of Florida today and a dangerous storm surge was expected to reach up to 3.4m along the Florida coast, Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the Miami- based NHC, said on CNN.
“What we know is that most of the lives lost in hurricanes i s due to storm surge,” he said.
At least 339 people were killed in Haiti, local officials said, and thousands were displaced after the storm flattened homes, uprooted trees and inundated neighbourhoods earlier in the week. Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, which neighbours Haiti.
Damage and potential casualties in the Bahamas were still unclear as the storm passed near the capital, Nassau, yesterday and then out over the western end of Grand Bahama Island.
It was too soon to predict where Matthew might do the most damage in the US, but the NHC’s hurricane warning extended up the Atlantic coast from southern Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina. More than 12 million people in the US were under hurricane watches and warnings, the Weather Channel said.
The last major hurricane, classified as a storm bearing sustained winds of more than 177km/ h, to make landfall on US shores was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Jeff Masters, a veteran hurricane expert, said on his Weather Underground website that Matthew’s wind threat was especially serious at Cape Canaveral, which juts into the Atlantic off central Florida.
“If Matthew does make landfall along the Florida coast, this would be the most likely spot for it. Billions of dollars of facilities and equipment are at risk at Kennedy Space Centre and nearby bases, which have never before experienced a major hurricane,” Masters wrote.
Nasa and the US Air Force, which operate the nation’s primary space launch site at Cape Canaveral, have already taken steps to safeguard personnel and equipment.
A team of 116 employees was bunkered down inside Kennedy Space Centre’s Launch Control Centre to ride out the hurricane.
Roads in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were jammed, and gas stations and food stores ran out of supplies as the storm approached yesterday.
Scott warned there could be “catastrophic” damage if Matthew slammed directly into the state and urged some 1.5 million people there to evacuate.
“If you’re reluctant to evacuate, just think about all the people . . . already killed,” Scott said. “Time is running out.”
Scott, who activated several thousand National Guard troops to help deal with the storm, warned that millions of people were likely to be left without power.
Florida, Georgia and South Carolina opened shelters for evacuees. As of yesterday, more than 3000 people were being housed in 60 shelters in Florida, Scott said.
Those three states as well as North Carolina declared states of emergency, empowering their governors to mobilise the National Guard.
President Barack Obama called the governors of the four states yes- terday to discuss preparations for the storm. He declared a state of emergency in Florida and South Carolina, a move that authorised federal agencies to co- ordinate disaster relief efforts. Obama later declared an emergency in Georgia and ordered federal aid to the state.
“Hurricane Matthew is as serious as it gets. Listen to local officials, prepare, take care of each other,” Obama warned people in the path of the storm in a posting on Twitter.
The centre said the storm was expected to gradually weaken during the next 48 hours.
Barack Obama