Hurricane Matthew makes a Disaster

Hurricane Matthew Hugging the Coast near Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia; Life-Threatening Flooding Imminent in Carolinas, Georgia.

Hurricane Matthew's eyewall continues to brush parts of Florida's northeast coast and Georgia's southeast coast with high winds and major storm surge flooding and will spread those impacts, in addition to potentially serious rainfall flooding, into Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina through at least Saturday night.

 

Matthew's tropical storm-force wind field (at least 39 mph sustained winds) extends up to 185 miles from the center, and hurricane-force winds extend up to 60 miles from the center. 

The center of Matthew remained within 25-40 miles of the northeast Florida coast much of Friday, but has been close enough to bring hurricane-force wind gusts to some coastal areas.

“There are houses that will probably not ever be the same again or not even be there,” St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver lamented as battleship-gray floodwaters coursed through the streets of the 451-year-old city founded by the Spanish. 

Matthew - the most powerful hurricane to threaten the Atlantic Seaboard in over a decade - set off alarm as it closed in on the U.S., having left more than 300 people dead in Haiti, and there are reports of up to 842 dead.

There were at least four deaths in Floridia attributed to the storm, including a woman whose house was hit by a tree in the Daytona area. At least 22,000 people were moved to shelters and more than two million people were evacuated across the Southeast. 

It stayed just far enough offshore to prevent major damage to cities like Miami, Fort Lauder dale and West Palm Beach. And the coast never felt the full force of its 120 mph winds.