US braces for Hurricane Matthew as Caribbean death toll rises
Nearly two million people along the US East Coast have been urged to evacuate their homes as Hurricane Matthew marches towards Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas packing power the US has not seen in more than a decade.
Matthew was a dangerous and life-threatening Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 115mph as it pounded the central Bahamas early on Thursday.
Forecasters said it is expected to strengthen over the coming day or so into an even more potent Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Florida's Atlantic coast.
At least 16 deaths in the Caribbean have been blamed on the storm. The death toll in Haiti alone was raised to 10 by the country's civil protection agency on Wednesday evening, and the number is expected to rise as more hard-hit rural areas are reached.
Civil aviation authorities reported counting 3,214 destroyed homes along the southern peninsula, where many families live in shacks with sheet metal roofs.
The Haiti government has estimated at least 350,000 people need some kind of assistance after the disaster, which UN deputy special representative for Haiti Mourad Wahba has called the country's worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating earthquake of 2010.
International aid groups are appealing for donations for a lengthy recovery effort in the Western Hemisphere's least developed and most aid-dependent nation.
The storm is forecast to scrape much of the Florida coast and any slight deviation could mean landfall or it heading farther out to sea. Either way, it is going to be close enough to wreak havoc along the lower part of the East Coast, and many people are taking no chances.
The last Category 3 storm or higher to hit the US was Wilma in October 2005. It made landfall with 120mph winds in south-west Florida, killing five people as it pushed through the Everglades and into the Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach area.
It caused billions in damage and left thousands of residents without power for more than a week. It concluded a two-year span when a record eight hurricanes hit the state.
Matthew is less than 300 miles south east of West Palm Beach and moving north west at 10mph, according to the National Hurricane Centre. Hurricane-force winds extended 45 miles from the centre, it said, adding Matthew is forecast to strengthen over the next day or so and become a Category 4 hurricane while approaching Florida's Atlantic coast.
"When a hurricane is forecast to take a track roughly parallel to a coastline, as Matthew is forecast to do from Florida through South Carolina, it becomes very difficult to specify impacts at any one location," said National Hurricane Centre forecaster Lixion Avila.
Florida can expect as much as 10in of rain in some isolated areas.
In South Carolina, governor Nikki Haley reversed the lanes of Interstate 26 so traffic was headed west and out of Charleston. Plans to reverse the lanes were put in place after hours-long traffic jams during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
The governor plans to call for more evacuations later, which would bring the total to about 500,000 people in the state. Florida urged or ordered about 1.5 million to leave the coast, said Jackie Schutz, spokeswoman for governor Rick Scott. Georgia has around 50,000 people told to go.
President Barack Obama visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency's headquarters on Wednesday to be briefed on preparations. FEMA has deployed personnel to emergency operation centres in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
