Hurricane Matthew roared into parts of the central Bahamas early Thursday as it continued its march toward the Southeastern United States, where authorities in states readying for the storm’s devastating combination of winds and rain declared emergencies and urged about 2 million people to evacuate.
The hurricane remained a powerful Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 115 mph as of 2 a.m. Thursday, but was expected strengthen to Category 4 as it neared Florida’s Atlantic Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.
After Matthew pummeled Haiti on Tuesday causing at least 10 deaths there and six more in the Dominican Republic and other parts of the Caribbean, officials said, with the full toll still unknown it weakened slightly before continuing on to the Bahamas and on a path to Florida, where forecasters warn it could lead to “life-threatening” along the state’s eastern coast.
At 11 p.m. Wednesday, the hurricane was centered about 325 miles southeast of West Palm Beach and moving northwest, the National Hurricane Center said. By 2 a.m., that distance had shorted to about 195 miles.
Officials, including President Obama in Washington and governors in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, urged residents to take the storm seriously pleas that came as Matthew was poised to be the most powerful storm to make landfall in the country in more than a decade.
“If Matthew directly impacts Florida, there will be massive destruction that we haven’t seen in years,” Gov. Rick Scott (R) said during a news conference.
Matthew was expected to approach the east coast of Florida on Thursday evening, hours after tropical storm conditions could begin in the state, and it could remain at a Category 3 or become even stronger by that point, the National Hurricane Center said.
If Matthew is a Category 3 or stronger hurricane when it hits Florida, it would be the first major hurricane to make landfall in the country since Hurricane Wilma in 2005. In early September, Hurricane Hermine touched down in Florida’s Panhandle as a Category 1 storm and then quickly weakened.
“This is a serious storm,” President Obama said after he was briefed on preparations for Matthew at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters in Washington. He added: “You can always rebuild, you can always repair property. You cannot restore a life if it is lost.”
Obama had been scheduled to visit Florida for two events Wednesday, but he scrapped that trip due to the storm and went to FEMA for the briefing instead, according to the White House. He warned that the storm “could have a devastating effect” even in areas spared the full force of the hurricane, and asked residents to pay attention to local leaders and follow evacuation orders.
The National Hurricane Center said Wednesday that it was extending hurricane warnings along much of Florida’s eastern coast. Scott declared a state of emergency in Florida, as did his counterparts in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
“Regardless if there’s a direct hit or not, the impacts will be devastating,” Scott said during another briefing on Florida’s preparations. “I cannot emphasize it enough that everyone in our state must prepare now for a direct hit.”
Scott closed state offices in more than two dozen Florida counties and said he activated 500 members of the Florida National Guard with another 6,000 ready to be deployed as needed. Some mandatory evacuations were in place Wednesday in Florida, along with voluntary evacuations in the Lucie, Flagler and Duval counties that are home to more than 1.2 million people. A spokesman for the governor told the Associated Press that about 1.5 million people were being asked to evacuate.
Forecasts have shifted Matthew’s track closer and closer to Florida’s populous east coast, which could bring tropical storm or hurricane effects there Thursday and into Friday. After that, the storm is expected to move up the East Coast, but its precise path remained unclear.
Residents flocked to their local Publix in south Florida to scrape the aisles clean of canned soup, peanut butter, bread and water bottles. Even as they prepared, people who have lived through storms before said they were worried about the effect.
“We’re right by the ocean,” Jordan Guadalupe, an 18-year-old juice-maker, said Wednesday. “On a scale of 1 to 10, my level of concern is at a solid eight.”
Guadalupe said his family in Lauderdale by the Sea has put up storm shutters and bought sandbags, but they were having trouble finding the supplies needed to ride out the storm. He said that his family lived inland during Hurricane Wilma, which he called “devastating.”
Others were looking at a silver lining. Lera Gavin, 26, said that Matthew would be her first hurricane. If the storm wasn’t too bad, she said, she might join friends at the Mondrian South Beach Hotel which has backup generators where they are throwing “hurricane parties.”
Further north, about two miles outside the hurricane watch zone near the Miami-Dade Broward County line, residents and business owners were also gearing up for Matthew’s wrath. Around 5 p.m., Sergio Rojas had already boarded up half of the floor to ceiling glass walls of Sunny Isles Fine Wine & Spirits at 17100 Collins Avenue. The 42-year-old liquor store owner moved from Los Angeles to Sunny Isles Beach in 2007, two years after Wilma.
Even though most of Matthew’s blunt force will be felt further north Florida’s coast, Rojas doesn’t want to take any chances. He said he bought his plywood in the early afternoon. “This will be my first hurricane,” Rojas said.
At a Home Depot near Stirling Road in Hollywood, two employees secured seven sturdy pieces of plywood to the roof of Alex Ozenaski’s black Hyundai sedan. “It took us about three hours to get in and out,” he said.
Inside the store, customers jockeyed for the remaining slivers of wood. Elvis David, a Home Depot sales associate, said the store would likely sell out its last pieces before closing at 10 p.m. “The chaos has been nonstop since we opened at six o’clock in the morning,” David said. “It’s been hectic all day.”
In South Carolina, Gov. Nikki Haley (R) activated the South Carolina National Guard and said the state would evacuate coastal communities and close all coastal schools. Even before mandatory evacuations went into effect in the state, roads were already jammed as people tried to leave the region.
Haley evacuated Charleston and Beaufort counties on Wednesday afternoon, and she said other areas were expected to evacuate Thursday morning.
“For those of you that are wondering whether you should leave or not, I again will tell you that if you do not leave, you are putting a law enforcement officer or a National Guardsman’s life on the line when they have to go back and get you,” she said.
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg stressed the importance of residents leaving as soon as possible.
“If everybody waited until the last minute and tried to get on the road at the same time, it would just be a congestive nightmare,” he said. “If you’ve got a place to go, if you’ve got friends or family in another part of the state and you can go ahead, relocate, and get out of here, the sooner the better.”
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