Hurricane Matthew is blasting Florida on Friday morning. The part of the storm with the fastest winds remains just off the state's eastern shore as the storm moves north.
The National Hurricane Center reports that Matthew is a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, making it somewhat less powerful than the 140-mph Category 4 monster it was Thursday. But it remains the most powerful storm to strike central or northern Florida in living memory, and it continues to pose the threat of severe flooding to much of Florida along with coastal Georgia and South Carolina through Friday and Saturday.
Hurricane warnings were extended up to Cape Lookout, North Carolina at 11 am Friday.
As Al Jazeera reports, the scale of destruction in Haiti, which took a direct hit from Matthew, is devastating. The latest tallies put the death toll at 478, up from 339 just a couple of hours earlier Friday morning. Many of the deaths were in small towns on the western end of the Tiburon Peninsula, including at least 50 in the coastal town of Roche-a-Bateau and 90 more in Chantal, per Al Jazeera's report.
One person has been reported dead in Florida, according to ABC News, and 500,000 have lost power. Winds in excess of 100 mph have been recorded in Cape Canaveral and Daytona Beach.
Significant hotel damage here in Daytona Beach - large parts of hotel coming off @weatherchannel #HurricaneMatthew pic.twitter.com/JskkbyW2FN
— Alexandra Wilson (@TWCAlexWilson) October 7, 2016 Video from my friend in Daytona Beach. The eyewall (strongest part of the storm) is on top of them. This is what 100 mph winds look like. pic.twitter.com/IpPrTBCkKp
— Ella Dorsey (@Ella__Dorsey) October 7, 2016
The most severe danger remains the potential for a life-threatening storm surge, as the NHC reports. If Matthew's eye wall, the part of the hurricane closest to its eye, where winds are most intense, shifts further toward land, it will push a wall of water ahead of it that could swamp coastal areas and overflow rivers. Fortunately, a landfall has grown less likely overnight.
Wind over 100mph in circled area. If this storm was 40 miles west, exponentially worse. Very fortunate so far. Landfall unlikely. #Matthew pic.twitter.com/rQ3ixmQT5C
— Dave Epstein (@growingwisdom) October 7, 2016 Friday morning, the NHC continued to warn of the potential for a storm surge of 6 to 9 feet from Falger Beach, Florida to Edisto Beach, South Carolina and along the St. Johns River.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida has been urging residents to flee areas under mandatory evacuation orders since Wednesday. Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina also initiated evacuations along her state's coastline.
Tammy Smith, a resident physician in the University of Florida hospital system, described to Business Insider a controlled but hectic scene as evacuated patients arrived from low-lying medical centers along the Florida and Georgia coasts. Patients were cleared out of the intensive-care unit to make room for the sudden influx of new arrivals.
WESH 2, a local NBC News affiliate in Florida, reports that people who ignored orders to evacuate have found themselves cut off from aid as they face the worst of the storm. At least one Merritt Island family described to emergency officials that the roof of their home "just flew off."
Meteorologists are keeping an eye on Matthew as the threat of an inland wobble remains severe.
Eye has gone more egg shaped ... a wobble could rotate the northern eyewall over the coast north of Daytona Beach pic.twitter.com/GLNMQ7KlJ7
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) October 7, 2016 This article was updated with new maps and warnings at 11:03 am Friday.
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