Matthew raked Georgia and SC with torrential rain and stiff winds, and – for the first time in its run-up the U.S. coastline – its storm centre blew ashore.
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London- Over 900 people have been killed by Hurricane Matthew and thousands have been uprooted, as the natural disaster plowed through Haiti on Friday.
Officials in the region said their biggest worry was a storm surge of as much as three metres of water that could be pushed onto land.
She died last night of a heart attack, reports CNN television News after emergency crews were unable to come to her aid during the worst of the storm. More than a million customers are also without power.
“A tree fell on the house and flattened it”.
“The winds are ferocious right now”, said Mr Jeff Piotrowski, a 40-year-old storm chaser from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was near Cape Canaveral early yesterday.
The official storm track forecast calls for the storm’s eyewall to remain off the coastline as it travels north. His young daughter stood by his side, crying “Mommy”.
The US military said USS Mesa Verda, a transport dock ship, was en route to Haiti to support relief efforts. The vehicle can produce fresh water and has water delivery vehicles aboard.
While all eyes are on Matthew, Hurricane Nicole is still churning and forming in the Atlantic.
The northern eyewall continues to bring hurricane force winds to the SC coast, and will move northeast along the coast at 12 miles per hour.
Haiti’s central civil protection agency, which takes longer to collate numbers because it needs to visually confirm victims itself, said 271 people died as Matthew smashed through the western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rain.
It’s not as if Matthew – with winds of 110 miles per hour at the center – won’t cause further damage with its powerful winds.
Previous declarations had been made for Florida, Georgia and SC.
Matthew – by some measures the most powerful hurricane to menace the United States in more than a decade – was just barely a hurricane, with winds of 75mph as it hit Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. Expect flooding rains with massive damage over many of these areas.
Just off the southeast US coast, the hurricane caused major flooding and power outages in the region. Standing water closed both directions of Interstate 95 highway in Georgia. Matthew lashed Savannah, a city that was settled in 1733 and has a handsome historic district of moss-draped trees, brick and cobblestone streets, Greek Revival mansions and other 18th- and 19th-century homes.
One death was reported overnight as President Barack Obama urged Americans to “pay attention to what your local officials are telling you” after meeting with top officials at the White House.
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Before making its way up to the USA earlier this week, Hurricane Matthew decimated Baracoa, a city on the eastern tip of Cuba, in the Guantánamo Province.
