Serious Can kill as many Americans as Katrina, Matthews coming

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.e1c662ba7b33


‘This storm will kill you’: Hurricane Matthew intensifies to Category 4 as it approaches Florida
By Mark Berman Post NationOctober 6 at 4:02 PM
'This will kill you.' Fla. Gov. Scott urges evacuations ahead of Hurricane Matthew. Play Video1:04

Florida Gov. Rick Scott urged residents in evacuation zones to "get out" and "not take a chance" as Hurricane Matthew approaches. (Reuters)
The strongest storm system to threaten the United States in a decade roared toward Florida on Thursday, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes as the deadly hurricane took direct aim at Florida’s Atlantic shores and threatened further damage up the East Coast.

Hurricane Matthew tore through Haiti this week, causing more than 100 deaths there before moving onto the Bahamas and heading to Florida. While Matthew had weakened at one point, by Thursday morning it strengthened again and surged to a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 140 mph.

The National Hurricane Center said the storm will likely remain a Category 4 storm as it hits Florida and could have “potentially disastrous impacts” there, warning of “life-threatening inundation” along the country’s southeastern coast.

In Florida and beyond, all eyes looked east as the unprecedented storm slowly approached. Officials and forecasters repeatedly stressed the dangers posed by the hurricane, pleading with residents to flee and using increasingly blunt language to describe the perils.

CONTENT FROM JAGUAR
After these rogue moments nothing was the same again
Journey through the moments in time that shaped the way we live our lives now.
“This is serious,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said during a briefing Thursday morning. “This storm will kill you. Time is running out.”

[Category 4 Hurricane Matthew will deal a devastating blow to the Florida coast]

Initial rain bands began to reach South Florida on Thursday morning, and Matthew is expected to begin strafing the state late Thursday and grind its way north on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. In addition, isolated tornadoes are possible along the Atlantic coastal areas in north and central Florida on Thursday night.

By early Saturday, hurricane conditions could extend into Georgia and South Carolina, the center forecast, and more than 2.5 million people were under evacuation orders from Florida to South Carolina.

Florida residents anticipate Hurricane Matthew's arrival Play Video1:32
The city Melbourne in southeast Florida is expected to be one of the hardest hit areas when Hurricane Matthew makes landfall. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)
More than 1.5 million Floridians live in evacuation zones, according to Scott, and the state opened dozens of shelters to house people.

Late Wednesday, he asked President Obama to declare a federal emergency in Florida due to the storm’s “potential to bring devastating impacts to millions of Floridians.” President Obama signed an emergency declaration for Florida on Thursday afternoon, ordering federal aid and allowing federal authorities to coordinate disaster relief efforts.


Scott had already declared a state of emergency in Florida — as have his counterparts in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — and across the state, residents hunkered down as the storm approached.

Schools closed their doors and campuses, universities rescheduled football games and other events, government offices shuttered for the rest of the week. Airlines have canceled more than 2,000 flights scheduled to travel through Florida’s airports on Thursday and Friday.

[Haiti takes stock of Hurricane Matthew devastation as storm churns toward U.S.]

Floridians either fled their homes or huddled with supplies after making the customary last-minute trips for bottled water, bread and peanut butter. Batteries were gathered, plywood erected and shutters lowered throughout the state. Some people headed to safer ground with friends or family in safer structures, while others planned “hurricane parties” to spend the hours on lockdown.

Even mainstays of Florida life were impacted: Walt Disney World announced that it would close its parks Thursday at 5 p.m. and remain closed all day Friday. SeaWorld in Orlando and Universal’s parks there also said they would close early Thursday and remain closed all day Friday.

Hurricane Matthew churns toward Southeast U.S. coast
View Photos The Category 4 hurricane slammed the eastern tip of Cuba and ravaged Haiti on its way to the East Coast and the Bahamas.
Scott also activated more than 3,500 Florida National Guard members, he said.

However, while Scott repeatedly urged people in evacuation zones to leave their homes, he said not to view the National Guard as a way to escape the storm after it hits.


“We should not be putting people’s lives at risk because you made the foolish decision not to evacuate,” he said during a briefing Thursday afternoon.

Forecasters were similarly foreboding in issuing dire warnings for what they called a “life-threatening” storm, the first major hurricane to hit the United States since Wilma in 2005. (Last month, Hurricane Hermine slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast before quickly being downgraded to a tropical storm.)


The hurricane appears to be without comparison in modern Florida history for eastern and central Florida, and could lead to multi-billion dollar damages across the state, according to the Capital Weather Gang. Florida Power and Light, the state’s utility, warned that up to 2.5 million people could lose power, and warned that some people could face “extended outages as we rebuild parts of the grid.”


In one bulletin, the National Weather Service said gusting wind could have “possible devastating impacts” on the eastern coast of central Florida and outlined possible consequences: “Structural damage to sturdy buildings, with complete roof and wall failures. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Damage may greatly accentuated by large airborne projectiles.”

And, in the most ominous suggestion of how long Matthew’s impact could be felt: “Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”

[Thrown for a loop: Matthew’s forecast track could rank among ‘weirdos’ in hurricane history]

As people flooded the roads to get out of town, air travel was severely restricted by the looming storm. American Airlines canceled all flights Thursday through the three South Florida airports — in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach — as well as flights through Orlando’s airport after 5:30 p.m.


People heading west from Merritt Island, Fla., on Wednesday. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP)
Delta, JetBlue and American Airlines all announced waivers allowing people to change flights traveling through the Southeast, Bahamas and Caribbean without paying any penalty.

Airlines canceled more than 1,400 flights through the United States on Thursday and another 1,200 flights on Friday. The overwhelming majority of these planes were scheduled to go through airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

[Hurricane Matthew’s ‘impacts will be devastating,’ Florida governor says]

While Florida prepared for the country’s first brush with Matthew, other states were also getting ready for the storm to rake across their communities.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) evacuated Charleston and Beaufort counties — home to more than half a million people — and said other evacuations were going to follow Thursday. She also stressed that those who ignore the evacuation orders could wind up putting others at risk.

“For those of you that are wondering whether you should leave or not, I again will tell you that if you do not leave, you are putting a law enforcement officer or a National Guardsman’s life on the line when they have to go back and get you,” she said during a briefing.

Authorities in South Carolina said a driver there was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies after a confrontation along an evacuation route, according to the Associated Press. Police said the driver knocked down traffic cones at a checkpoint and drove off, and when sheriff’s deputies caught up with him he began shooting at deputies, who returned fire. None of the deputies were injured, but four have been placed on leave.


Grocery aisles are slowly picked clean in Hollywood, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) declared an emergency in 13 of the state’s coastal communities, warning that the storm’s impact there could render travel essentially impossible in much of that area.

Deal on Thursday announced mandatory evacuations in six of the state’s coastal counties, a stretch east of Interstate 95 that has more than 530,000 residents.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) also declared an emergency in 66 counties in the eastern and central parts of that state, where residents are still recovering from heavy flooding just last month.

On Thursday, McCrory said at a briefing that while he’s optimistic given the latest forecasts, the storm will likely still cause flooding and power outages in southeastern counties. The state is moving most of its swift water rescue teams into these parts of the state, McCrory said, in anticipation of heavy flooding.

'Don't be fooled by the eye of the storm' N.C. governor warns residents about Matthew Play Video0:44
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said the latest projections show Hurricane Matthew turning away from the state, but warned residents should still be prepared. (Reuters)
Obama scrapped two planned events in Florida on Wednesday and visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters in Washington for a hurricane briefing instead. He urged residents to be ready and pay attention to warnings from authorities.

“I want to make sure that everybody is paying attention to your local officials,” he said during remarks after his briefing. “If there is an evacuation order in your community, you need to take it seriously. … [E]ven if you don’t get the full force of the hurricane, we are still going to be seeing tropical force winds, the potential for a storm surge, and all of that could have a devastating effect.”

Obama urges residents to take Hurricane Matthew seriously Play Video1:18
Obama urges the American public to take Hurricane Matthew seriously as it approached several U.S. coastal states and to comply with any evacuation orders. (Reuters)
Colleges from Florida International University in Miami and the University of Central Florida in Orlando canceled classes, as did schools as far north as the University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston.

The University of Florida called off its game against Louisiana State on Saturday, and Central Florida postponed a scheduled football game against Tulane. Other major college games scheduled over the weekend — in Columbia, S.C., and Miami — remained tentatively on the calendar as planned.

[It’s not hype. Matthew has been blasting through records.]

The Floridians readying for the storm are a mix of veterans who have been through this before and those unaccustomed to the routines of amassing canned soup, plywood and flashlights. People who headed out to prepare found grocery aisles scraped clean of water and long lines at their local Home Depot.

At a Home Depot near Stirling Road in Hollywood, two employees secured seven sturdy pieces of plywood to the roof of black Hyundai sedan.

“It took us about three hours to get in and out,” Alex Ozenaski said outside a Home Depot in Hollywood while two employees secured plywood to the roof of his black Hyundai. “We had just moved to South Florida when Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005. We weren’t prepared. This time, we are almost prepared.”


Jordan Guadalupe, an 18-year-old juice-maker, said he had lived in South Florida when Wilma hit and called that storm “devastating.”

On Wednesday, even as his family in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea put up shutters and bought sandbags, Guadalupe was worried about finding other supplies.

“We’re right by the ocean,” he said.

After 37 years, Hurricane Matthew reunited this couple Play Video1:39
Hours before Hurricane Matthew was due to hit, this man traveled to his hometown of Melbourne, Fla., to help his teenage sweetheart withstand the storm. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)
Jason Samenow, Angela Fritz, Lori Aratani and Susan Hogan in Washington; Francisco Alvarado in Miami Beach, Fla.; and Kirk Ross in Chapel Hill, N.C., contributed to this report. This story, first published at 8:53 a.m., will be updated throughout the day.

Further reading:

Hurricane Matthew likely to mostly miss D.C. and the Delmarva

572 Comments
Mark Berman covers national news for The Washington Post and anchors Post Nation, a destination for breaking news and stories from around the country. Follow @markberman

Paid Promoted Stories
Vietnam has elements manufacturers seek in overseas markets
Vietnam has elements manufacturers seek in overseas markets
HSBC Singapore
Asian investors turn to smart-beta ETFs as active managers' results disappoint
Asian investors turn to smart-beta ETFs as active managers' results disappoint
Business Times
Easy Way To Unclog Your Sinks
Easy Way To Unclog Your Sinks
food for life tv
Recommended by
Most Read
1
‘This storm will kill you’: Hurricane Matthew intensifies to Category 4 as it approaches Florida
2
A 7-year-old told her bus driver she couldn’t wake her parents. Police found them dead at home.
3
Graphic new videos shed light on Minnesota stabbing attack by a man the FBI believes had been ‘radicalized’
4
‘His criminality was astounding’: An osteopathic doctor, a motorcycle gang and $5 million in prescription pills
5
‘It’s not in your head’: Striking new study links birth control to depression
Unlimited Access to The Post. Just 99¢
washingtonpost.com
© 1996-2016 The Washington Post

Help and Contact Us
Terms of Service
Privacy Policy
Print Products Terms of Sale
Digital Products Terms of Sale
Submissions and Discussion Policy
RSS Terms of Service
Ad Choices
testtest


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.