FLORIDA BRACES FOR MATTHEW, HAITI COUNTS DEAD
Leaving more than 100 dead in its wake across the Caribbean, hurricane Matthew steamed toward heavily populated Florida with terrifying winds of 225 km/h late Thursday, and two million people across the Southeast were warned to flee inland.
It was the most powerful storm to threaten the U.S. Atlantic coast in more than a decade.
“The storm has already killed people. We should expect the same impact in Florida,” Gov. Rick Scott said as the skies began darkening from Matthew’s outer bands of rain.
The hurricane gained fury as it closed in, growing from a possibly devastating Category-3 storm to a potentially catastrophic Category-4 storm by late morning.
It was expected to scrape nearly the entire length of Florida’s Atlantic coast beginning Thursday evening. From there, forecasters said it would most likely push along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina before veering out to sea — perhaps even looping back toward Florida in the middle of next week as a tropical storm.
Millions of people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were told to evacuate their homes, and interstate highways were turned into one-way routes to speed the exodus. Florida alone accounted for roughly 1.5 million people.
Many boarded up their homes and businesses and left them to the mercy of the storm.
“We’re not going to take any chances on this one,” said Daniel Myras, who struggled to find enough plywood to protect his restaurant, the Cruisin Cafe, two blocks from the Daytona Beach boardwalk.
He added: “A lot of people here, they laugh, and say they’ve been through storms before and they’re not worried. But I think this is the one that’s going to give us a wake-up call.”
Some coastal residents decided to take their chances and stay.
“We boarded up our house and I boarded up my store,” Deborah Whyte said at Florida’s Jupiter Beach Park. “And we’re just hunkering down and waiting for it.”
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal ordered a mandatory evacuation of the entire Georgia coast, covering more than a half-million people. The Georgia coast hasn’t seen a hurricane evacuation since 1999, when it narrowly escaped Floyd.
“We have a house that sits right here on the water and we kind of said goodbye to it thinking that, you know, the house ... might not be here when we get back,” said Jennifer Banker, a resident of Georgia’s dangerously exposed St. Simons Island.
Among the coastal communities in danger were two of the South’s most historic and handsome cities, with many beautifully maintained antebellum homes: Charleston, which got slammed by hurricane Hugo in 1989, and Savannah, Ga.
“Hurricane Matthew is a storm not to be messed with,” Savannah Mayor Eddie DeLoach said. “If you decide to ride it out, do not expect us to be there to help you.”
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Florida, freeing up federal money and personnel to protect lives and property.
Airlines cancelled more than 2,800 flights Thursday and Friday, many of them in or out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Amtrak suspended train service between Miami and New York, and cruise lines rerouted ships to avoid the storm.
In inland Orlando, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World announced they were closing early.
The last Category-3 storm or higher to hit the U.S. was Wilma in October 2005. It sliced across Florida with 190 km/h winds, killing five people and causing an estimated $21 billion in damage.
Matthew killed at least 114 people as it roared through the Caribbean. Officials said at least 108 of those deaths were in desperately poor Haiti, where many towns were cut off by the storm and the magnitude of the disaster was just beginning to come into focus two days later.
In the Bahamas, authorities reported many downed trees and power lines but no immediate deaths.