UPDATED: Monday, Oct. 10, 8:25 AM EST:
Hurricane Matthew rampaged across four Southeastern states, killing eight people in North Carolina and three in South Carolina, bringing the storm’s death toll in the U.S. to 19, reports NBC News.
Destruction in the U.S. was much less than in Haiti, where an estimated 1,000 people died in the storm, writes Reuters:
Haiti started burying some of its dead in mass graves in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, a government official said on Sunday, as cholera spread in the devastated southwest and the death toll from the storm rose to 1,000 people.
The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rains that left 1.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
A Reuters tally of numbers from local officials showed that 1,000 people were killed by the storm in Haiti, which has a population of about 10 million and is the poorest country in the Americas.
SOURCE: NBC News, Reuters | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
Hurricane Matthew hammered Florida’s central coast early Friday, whipping up “heavy rains and high winds as the eye of the storm” plowed toward the Carolinas, reports The New York Times:
The hurricane had weakened slightly overnight but was still a powerful Category 3 storm with winds of about 120 miles per hour, and officials warned that it remained “extremely dangerous.” The storm was blamed for the deaths of more than 280 people in Haiti.
This is a developing story.
SOURCE: The New York Times | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
Residents and tourists on Thursday were ordered to evacuate the coastal areas of southeast Florida and South Carolina as Hurricane Matthew surged toward the U.S. after battering the Bahamas, Haiti, and other parts of the Caribbean, reports USA Today.
The storm on Wednesday hammered the Bahamas and whipped toward Florida after “killing at least 21 people in Haiti and prompting the hard-hit country to postpone a long-awaited presidential election,” according to Global News.
President Obama scrapped plans to visit Florida on Wednesday as the storm swirled toward the U.S., reports The Washington Post:
“This is a serious storm,” President Obama said after he was briefed on preparations for Matthew at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters in Washington. He added: “You can always rebuild, you can always repair property. You cannot restore a life if it is lost.”
From CNN:
Authorities urged more than 2 million people to leave their homes in coastal Florida, Georgia and South Carolina as the storm neared — the largest mandatory evacuations in the United States since Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012.
It’s moving northwest at about 12 mph and packing 125 mph (205 kph) winds — a Category 3 storm. Thursday morning it was about 30 miles (45 km) south-southwest of Nassau, Bahamas, and 215 miles (350 km) from West Palm Beach, Florida.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday morning urged people to leave the state, saying, “get out, don’t take a chance. Time is running out,” writes CNN.
SOURCE: USA Today, Global News, CNN, The Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
SEE ALSO:
Weather Reporter Blames Haiti’s Deforestation On Starving, Tree-Eating Kids
