At this point, if you’re south of Palm Beach you are probably not going to see much damage. If you are around Jupiter and Vero Beach, minimal damage. From there north it will trend to more significant wind damage and the storm surge will be much more of a concern.
The eye of the hurricane is about 40 miles east of Fort Pierce heading northwest towards Melbourne, Cocoa Beach and the space coast. The exact location of landfall is not all that significant, strong hurricane force winds will hit any areas around the eyewall reaching land and as they say at the NHC, don’t concentrate on the line on the map, the worst conditions are sometimes to the east of that line which in this case means to the north of the approaching eye as it crawls up the coast.
If you’re around Melbourne to Daytona Beach, expect a really severe hit starting late tonight in the south of that zone and peaking mid-morning towards Daytona Beach.
The long battle with land and the coast may weaken Matthew a bit by the time it reaches Atlantic Beach (JAX region) and Georgia but not much and storm surge will continue to be a major issue.
If this does turn out to be a killer storm in the U.S., my feeling is that storm surge will be the main problem.
All of the Wind Storm Insurance and Building Designs are useless for flooding... however Politicians WILL figure out a way to make you think that they are doing something and make everything 3-4 times their current cost while denying you use of your own property.
I dread the aftermath of Politics much more than the aftermath of the Storm. One you can recover from the other is a Cancer.
Katrina was a Storm but was/is a Cancer, this one will only be a spread of that Cancer. .