Hurricane Matthew forecast track keeps storm east of Florida
- by Paula Vaughn
- in Culture
- — Oct 13, 2016
A hurricane watch was in effect for eastern Cuba, where the government declared a hurricane alert for six eastern provinces and removed traffic lights from poles in the city of Santiago to keep them from falling due to heavy wind.
There is no evidence that points where exactly Hurricane Matthew will land, but there are predictions that say the storm is approaching the Atlantic Coast of the United States and it will make a landfall around next week.
Matthew headed toward the Bahamas and is maintaining Cat 4 strength as of Monday afternoon The storm will continue moving northward toward Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba through tonight and into Monday.
One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the beach town of Port Salut, Haiti's civil protection service said. They also evacuated people from some outlying islands.
Damage in the hardest-hit part of Haiti appeared to be widespread, but because of poor communications, blocked roads and washed-out bridges, the full extent was not immediately clear. "The rivers would just overflow, so everything is just going to be leveled as far as the water goes", said Green.
The storm is forecast to spread hurricane force winds and up to three feet of rain across denuded hills prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shanty towns in the capital Port-au-Prince.
The hurricane comes at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings in Haiti after a 2010 quake that killed more than 200,000 people. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she would issue an evacuation order Wednesday so 1 million people would have time to leave the coast.
"If Matthew directly impacts Florida, there will be massive destruction that we haven't seen in years", said Florida Governor Rick Scott. The storm was expected to remain a powerful and unsafe hurricane into Tuesday, forecasters said.
Health Conditions Worsen as Aid Trickles Into Remote Haiti
The Port Salut hospital was one of the few buildings to escape the storm virtually intact, thanks to its solid construction. One week after the brutal Hurricane Matthew passed by Haiti , the country is still experiencing a lot of loss.
The outer bands of the storm reached the area late on Monday, flooding dozens of houses in Les Anglais when the ocean rose, the mayor said.
After making landfall on Tuesday night near Cuba's sparsely populated eastern tip with no immediate reports of major damage, the centre of the slightly weakened but still powerful storm moved back over open water. It was moving northwest at 5 miles per hour (7 kph).
Haitian authorities had tried to evacuate people from the most vulnerable areas ahead of the storm, but many were reluctant to leave their homes.
While its potential impact on the US remained unclear, NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins suggested that the storm's path could be reminiscent of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 - which required the evacuation of 2.6 million people across five states.
"We have gusts of wind hitting the whole area and the people have fled to a shelter", Les Anglais mayor Jean-Claude Despierre said.
Haiti is due to hold a long-delayed presidential election on October 9.
"From the models I'm looking at.it should be out of North Carolina by Sunday", Timpte said.
"FEMA is deploying officials to state emergency operations centers in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina", said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Already, Florida and North Carolina's governor have declared an emergency, and SC has partially activated their emergency management center in an effort to coordinate any possible response the state may have to make.
