Hurricane Matthew Lashes Florida With 100 MPH Winds, 2 Dead as Over 1 Million Lose Power

ABC News ^ | Oct 7, 2016, 3:38 PM ET

[Dave346]

Hurricane Matthew battered the Florida coast today with powerful winds, potentially devastating storm surges and torrential rain, leaving over 1 million people without power as officials made last-minute appeals for any remaining holdouts to get out of harm's way.

Matthew also claimed its first U.S. victims after officials in St. Lucie County, Florida, said two people died overnight when emergency officials could not get to them because of the storm's strong winds.

One victim, a woman in her late 50s, died from cardiac arrest, according to St. Lucie fire department officials. Crews could not safely respond to her location and the woman died by the time crews arrived, officials said.

Later in the night, there was a report of an unconscious 82-year-old man breathing with difficulty. "When it was deemed safe for emergency vehicles to travel it was reported to first responders that the patient had been taken to the hospital," according to officials. The man was later declared dead.

The hurricane has already claimed hundreds of lives as it tore through Haiti and other Caribbean nations.

The National Hurricane Center downgraded the storm to a Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph winds at 2 a.m. ET today. The deadly storm could produce a potentially devastating storm surge of up to 10 feet over about 500 miles of coast that stretches from Florida, to Georgia and up into South Carolina.

As of 2 p.m. ET, Hurricane Matthew was 60 miles southeast of Jacksonville, Florida.

Severe flooding struck the beach in Jacksonville this afternoon, inundating the area with water and crushing dunes.

The storm is expected to move near or over the coast of northeast Florida and the coast of Georgia through tonight, then near or over the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

I’m thinking these Hurricane Matthew videos are from St Augustine:

23- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCpDFGtrP80
24- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PK88i-iUd0

26- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOra_aYqJ-s
27- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn4S7wtVdu8
28- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwDADrjzjKs
29- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jgtjAhw8R8

[bgill]

You know Hellary is busy writing out another check to Haiti.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

She’s Our Gal, ain’t she?

*SPIT*

[ilovesarah2012]

A lot of Floridians haven’t forgotten Andrew.

[ilovesarah2012]

I read over 800 in Haiti.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the Lake of Galilee.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

POST #41 VIDEOS are of Flagler College St Augustine

[Suz in AZ]

Benghazi Hillary:
Twice as deadly as Hurricane Matthew.

[moovova]

And their kids too!

[fortheDeclaration]

LOL!

[eddie willers]

One time...in band camp...

[9YearLurker]

Ha ha. Good for the carport camping badge!

[Peter ODonnell]

I think we need to keep in mind, sooner or later this downplaying of risk mentality will get hundreds of Americans killed when a storm zigs instead of zagging. There was a bit of that with Ike and a lot of it with Katrina (who really needed to die on the Mississippi coast or in Slidell LA from Katrina? It was obvious 24 hours in advance that doom was approaching.)

Also, I can understand that for many, it’s always a question of cost, sure it’s fine to evacuate but how many days or weeks will they keep you from returning home, and what will that cause? So people sometimes roll the dice, sometimes with success, other times not so much.

There will come a day when a storm veers off course in the worst possible place and time. Thus I believe people need to factor in that all these forecasts are probability-based and made with that variation in mind.

Also, anyone reading this in Georgia and South Carolina might want to be cautious about taking it all verbatim. Storm surge is a complicated business, the surge is not all near the eye of a storm. It depends on how the flow of water is constrained by the shore, tidal factors, runoff from flooding rivers and estuaries. I would not bet my life on storm surge underperforming anywhere north of where Matthew is now.

[HollyB]

Shep Smith’s freak out probably caused that woman to have a heart attack. Once the wind started blowing hard, her stress level probably shot her blood pressure thru the roof.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

When there’s too much fearmongering there is bound to be a deep level at skepticism at some point.

Roofs got ripped from houses, so that’s hard evidence that this has been dangerous so far.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I hope the temperature is low — cool that monster down.

[mikhailovich]

To my way of thinking a hurricane needs to make a direct hit and move inland to be catastrophic. The way this one is skirting the coast with the worst of it on the NE side makes it appear unlikely to be anything like a Katrina.

[WENDLE]

I am just going to say it. This storm was way over hyped. Here is when a storm kills you.1, you are hit by debris or 2. you drown, Not some three step extrapolation and speculation. The lady died because she had a heart attack. It would be rank speculation that she would have even survived . An 82 year old quits breathing? given the total lack of intensity in fact of this storm it seems to me the first responders were not responding at all. Time to move on. It was a fizzler. I hope you stayed to protect your stuff from the looters that will be looking for non attended houses tonight.

[SES1066]

I believe that, as truly bad as it is, the 100mph winds were 'Wind Gusts'! The NOAA definition is as follows;

A sudden, brief increase in speed of the wind. According to U.S. weather observing practice, gusts are reported when the peak wind speed reaches at least 16 knots and the variation in wind speed between the peaks and lulls is at least 9 knots. The duration of a gust is usually less than 20 seconds.

Without the 'eye' coming on shore, the sustained winds of Matthew, onshore, generally tended to be under 60mph. Trying to maximize the hurricane is probably akin to ABC maximizing Hillary - lots of wind but no substance!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Then the Media can do a Happy Dance, I guess. :(