Hurricane Matthew About to Hit Florida as a Category 4
Hurricane Matthew will move up the east coast of Florida bring heavy rain and high winds. Thousands of customers were without power in Florida Thursday night as Hurricane Matthew began to impact the state.
Several Florida counties issued evacuation orders ahead of the storm.
The University of Florida has canceled Saturday's college football game against LSU. According to the Florida Power and Light, more than 94,000 customers were without power Thursday night.
In total, 164,960 FPL customers in Florida have power at some point Thursday. Thursday night, Gov. Rick Scott called the storm a "monster" and urged residents to stay in a safe place for the entire event.
"There’s no reason to take a chance," he said. "It just doesn’t make any sense."
Thursday afternoon, President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Florida, just hours after Florida Gov. Rick Scott said warned that "this (storm) will kill you." State officials began to grow impatient with residents who were still refusing to leave their homes Thursday along the coast, and they were resorting to the most urgent warnings to get their point across.
"People do not seem to get it and are not leaving," Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told NBC News. "I'm not saying this to be theatrical ... I asked my captain of detectives if he had body bags because if we get 140 mph winds in mobile home parks, we are going to have fatalities."
There was also plenty of strong wording coming from forecasters in Jacksonville and Melbourne, who warned that the storm could be capable of catastrophe unseen by a tropical system in this region.
"If a direct landfall occurs, this will be unlike any hurricane in the modern era," said the National Weather Service's Jacksonville office in a forecast discussion.
Thousands of residents fled the coast in advance of the storm's arrival, but some remained hesitant to leave all of their belongings behind.
"I'm not worried about going," an unnamed woman told TCPalm.com. "I'm worried about what I might come back to."
Speaking at a press conference Thursday morning, Scott said, "We're planning for the worst, hoping for the best, but we're not going to take a chance." "This is going to kill people," Scott said of Hurricane Matthew at the press conference, in which he, once again, sounded the alarm for residents to evacuate. In the wake of what he and the National Weather Service called a "life-threatening storm," Scott urged residents to have at least a three-day supply of food, water, and medicine. "Charge your phone," he added.
The National Weather Service said that the winds from this hurricane could well exceed those of the three large storms that pummeled the state in 2004. Waves from the storm could reach up to 18 feet as well, and residents should expect severe coastal surging.
Schools across most of the state are now closed. Affected counties include Miami-Dade County, Osceola district schools, Volusia County, Flagler County, Polk County, Seminole County and Palm Beach County, which canceled school Thursday and Friday, and Duval County, which canceled school until further notice. Local news channels are keeping full and updated lists. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is closed. Many inward and outward bounds flights coming into other local airports -- Miami International Airport and Palm Beach International Airport -- have been delayed or canceled as well.
Orlando's Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, and LEGOLAND are all closed at least through Friday, Fox35 in Orlando reported. Holloween Horror Nights will also be closed on Thursday and Friday night.
Mandatory evacuation orders were also in effect for Brevard County's Merritt Island, barrier islands and low-lying areas, and in St. Johns County, low-lying areas and barrier islands will be ordered to evacuate on Thursday. Voluntary evacuations are currently in place for parts of numerous other counties; the Florida Division of Emergency Management has a complete list. In total, about 1.5 million Floridians have been ordered or urged to move away from the coast, Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz told the Associated Press.
The governor's office announced Wednesday that all tolls would be lifted on roadways necessary for evacuation, and also announced that state offices would be closed Thursday and Friday in 26 counties expected to bear the brunt of the storm's fury.
Weather forecasters and locals news stations used strong language when urging locals to prepare for the storm and remain vigilant. "Extremely dangerous and life-threatening wind is possible," wrote the National Weather Service's Melbourne office in a forecast discussion. "Failure to adequately shelter may result in serious injury, loss of life or immense human suffering."
Emergency managers in Palm Beach County ordered residents to evacuate barrier islands, mobile home parks and substandard housing Wednesday evening, according to the Palm Beach Post.
"We need to evacuate inland within the county and not go to Georgia or Orlando," Bill Johnson, director of Palm Beach County emergency management, told the Sun-Sentinel. "We run from the surge. We hide from the wind. We are evacuating people because of surge – not because of wind."
The Florida Coast Guard closed all inlet and Intracoastal Waterway bridges in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties until further notice, according to the Boca Raton Police Department.
Evacuation shelters are open. The full list of shelters as they open will be available here.
Scott also announced the activation of 500 Florida National Guardsmen. Another 6,000 members of the FNG were placed on standby in the event of a large-scale evacuation or response effort after the storm. The University of Florida announced its college football game against LSU, originally scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed. The two schools will work to reschedule the game for a date later in the season.
