Hurricane Matthew Prompts Mass Evacuations In South Carolina After Pummeling Haiti And Cuba

The fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade hammered Haiti and Cuba.

ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI / REUTERS

A wave splashes on the beach at Siboney ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Matthew, Cuba, October 4, 2016

LES CAYES, Haiti/GUANTANAMO, Cuba - Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, powered towards the Bahamas and the U.S. coast early

on Wednesday after battering Haiti and Cuba with torrential rain, wreaking havoc among the struggling Haitian population.

Dubbed by the U.N. the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, the hurricane whipped Cuba and Haiti with 140 mile-per-hour (230 kph) winds on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the storm, which caused severe flooding and killed four people in Dominican Republic as well as at least two in Haiti, the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola.

A Category Four Hurricane through Tuesday, Matthew was downgraded to a Category Three storm early on Wednesday, the Miami-based National HurricaneCenter (NHC) said.

Making it harder to assess the severity of the impact on Haiti, Matthew knocked out communications in many of the worst-affected areas, including the main bridge that links much of the country to the southwest peninsula.

The U.S. Navy ordered 700 spouses and children along with 65 pets of service personnel evacuated as the storm approached.

Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city, which lies in the southeast of Cuba, was not badly hit, state media said.

The eye of the storm was about 155 miles (250 km) south-southeast of Long Island in the Bahamas early on Wednesday and, after moving through the island group, Matthew is expected to be very near the east coast of Florida by Thursday evening, the NHC said.

Officials in the Bahamas urged residents to evacuate to higher ground, and the Ministry for Grand Bahama said on Facebook that government offices in New Providence and Grand Bahama had been closed on Tuesday until further notice.

Hurricane and tropical storm warnings were issued for parts of Florida as the storm moved north, the NHC said.

The National Weather Service said the threat to life and property was high, predicting winds of up to 70 mph (115 kph) and 4 inches (10 cm) of rain for parts of Florida.

Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, declared a state of emergency, and ordered the evacuation of more than 1 million people from Wednesday afternoon.

Tropical storm or hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the NHC said.

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