Hurricane Matthew's howling wind and driving rain pummeled Florida early on Friday, starting what's expected to be a ruinous, dayslong battering of the Southeast coast.
The strongest winds of 120 mph were just offshore,
but Matthew's wrath still menaced more than 500 miles of coastline and
26 million Americans.
Government
officials declared a state of emergency in several states in an effort
to plan ahead since the deadly Category Three storm is expected to wreak
havoc with its 120mph winds.
About 1.5
million people in Florida have been told to go inland as the dangerous
and life-threatening Category Four storm could become a Category Five
and siege on the east coast of the state destroying homes and building
structures and knocking down trees.
Forecasters
predict it will bring a dangerous storm surge to some parts of the
state that will be even worse than what happened in New Jersey during
Super Storm Sandy in 2012
- Hurricane Matthew started hitting Florida early Friday morning with heavy rain and strong winds
- Downgraded from a Category 4 to 3 - but that only means a reduction of winds from 130mph to 120mph
- Powerful storm claimed at least 340 lives after it ripped through the Dominican Republic and Haiti Tuesday
- Orlando's world-famous theme parks - Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld - all closed
- President Barack Obama declared a federal state of emergency in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina
- Could bring a storm surge of up to 11 feet in some areas and drop up to 15 inches of rain on Florida
- Already 170,000 have been left without power in Florida and up to seven million more could suffer outages
- Matthew could also absorb or combine with Hurricane Nicole, which has formed off coast of Bermuda
- National Weather Service has advised 'loss of life' and 'immense human suffering' is possible
- Two million people in the US were urged to evacuate their homes in preparation for a 'direct hit'
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