HURRICANE MATTHEW ATTACKS FLORIDA TODAY.. PRESIDENT OBAMA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY TO HELP FLORIDA
Thursday, October 06, 2016
VietPress USA(Oct. 6th, 2016): This is the Breaking News.on Matthew Hurricane that will attack Florida today. We pray the God will protect everybody from this act of nature. VietPress USA www.vietpressusa.com
President Obama Declares State Of Emergency To Help Florida During Hurricane Matthew
This is serious, all! President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in Florida and has called upon federal aid to support local efforts today, Oct. 6, as the devastating Hurricane Matthew approaches the coast. Get all of the details right here!
Here’s the latest on Hurricane Matthew, which is being called the most potentially destructive storm since 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. President Barack Obama, 55, has declared Florida to be in a state of emergency, and he has ordered federal aid from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in response to the tropical storm. State, tribal and local response efforts are already in effect, but there are lives at stake, sparking a need for federal support, too, during this rare Category 4 storm. You can watch live footage right here.
The National Hurricane Center is tracking Major Hurricane Matthew in the Caribbean. Matthew is moving northward through the northern Caribbean, and it is expected to impact Florida beginning Thursday. Please refer to the National Hurricane Center for the latest information on this dangerous storm.
Hurricane Matthew is reportedly currently pelting Florida with high winds and heavy rain, and airlines are canceling hundreds of flights. The Fort Lauderdale airport shut down this morning, and the Orlando airport, which is farther north, is expected to close by this evening.
HollywoodLifers, keep checking the National Weather Service for official updates on Hurricane Matthew, and exercise caution if you live in an affected area!
Matthew strengthened back into a Category 4 hurricane
Thursday, the National Hurricane Center announced, as emergency officials urged
some 2 million people from Florida to South Carolina to pack up and get out.
"Do not go on the beach. This will kill you,"
Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned Thursday. "Unfortunately, this is going to
kill people."
President Obama declared a state of emergency for Florida
Thursday afternoon, clearing the way for federal aid in addition to state and
local emergency response teams. Forecasters said the hurricane could make
landfall Thursday night.
The storm's top wind speed surged to 140 mph around midday Thursday,
officials said. Hurricane Matthew was moving northwest near 14 mph between
Andros Island and Nassau in the Bahamas. Forecasting models predicted the storm
could ride up the coast all the way to South Carolina.
The Fort Lauderdale airport shut down on Thursday morning,
and further north the Orlando airport expected to do the same by nighttime. By
midday, flight-tracking service FlightAware.com reported that nearly 1,500
flights within the U.S. had been scrapped, with the largest numbers at Fort
Lauderdale and Miami. American Airlines, which has a major hub in Miami, was
the hardest-hit carrier, followed by Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways.
"When a hurricane is forecast to take a track roughly
parallel to a coastline, as Matthew is forecast to do from Florida through
South Carolina, it becomes very difficult to specify impacts at any one
location," National Hurricane Center forecaster Lixion Avila said.
The number of people killed in Haiti rose to 136, officials
told Reuters on Thursday, saying the storm killed at least four people
elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal ordered a mandatory evacuation of
his state's entire coast, covering more than a half-million people. The Georgia
coast hasn't seen a hurricane evacuation since 1999, when it narrowly escaped
Hurricane Floyd.
Scott said Florida could see its biggest evacuation ever.
"This thing is getting close to our coast, you better be ready before. If
it turns at the last minute, you're not going to have time to get ready. You're
not going to be able to get your food and water. You're not going to be able to
evacuate. You're going to put you and your family's life at risk."
Florida can expect as much as 10 inches of rain in some
isolated areas. The governor has activated another 1,000 National Guard
members, bringing the total to 2,500. He says they'll be available to help with
evacuations and getting people to shelters.
The storm was forecast to scrape much of the Florida coast
and any slight deviation could mean landfall or heading farther out to sea.
Either way, it was going to be close enough to wreak havoc along the
southeastern U.S. and many people weren’t taking any changes.
In Melbourne Beach, near the Kennedy Space Center, Carlos
and April Medina moved their paddle board and kayak inside the garage and took
pictures off the walls of their home about 500 feet from the coast. They moved
the pool furniture inside, turned off the water, disconnected all electrical
appliances and emptied their refrigerator.
They then hopped in a truck filled with legal documents,
jewelry and a decorative carved shell that had once belonged to April Medina's
great-grandfather and headed west to Orlando, where they planned to ride out
the storm with their daughter's family.
"The way we see it, if it maintains its current path,
we get tropical storm-strength winds. If it makes a little shift to the left,
it could be a Category 2 or 3 and I don't want to be anywhere near it,"
Carlos Medina said. "We are just being a little safe, a little bit more
cautious."
About 20 miles away in the town of Cape Canaveral, John Long
said Hurricane Matthew is just hype as his neighbors in his RV park packed up
and evacuated inland. Even though his 32-foot RV is just feet from the Banana
River and a half mile from the beach, he had no plans to leave.
Long, who owns a bike shop and has lived along the Space
Coast for 30 years, said he has a generator and enough food and water for
himself and his cats to last a week.
"There's always tremendous buildup and then it's no
stronger than an afternoon thunderstorm," he said. "I'm not
anticipating that much damage."
In Fort Lauderdale, about 200 miles south, six employees at
a seven-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion packed up for an evacuation fearing
any storm surge could flood the property. The homeowners planned to move to
another home they own in Palm Beach that's further from the water. Two
Lamborghinis and a Ferrari had been placed inside the garage, but employee Mae
White wasn't sure what they would do with a Rolls Royce, Mustang and other cars
still parked in the driveway.
"This storm surge. It's scary," White said.
"You're on the water, you've got to go."
Meanwhile, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley reversed lanes of
Interstate 26 so that all lanes of traffic were headed west and out of
Charleston. It was the first time the lanes had been reversed. Plans to reverse
the lanes were put in place after hours-long traffic jams during Hurricane
Floyd in 1999.
Scott also lifted tolls on major roads. The Florida
Turnpike, Alligator Alley and roads apart of the Central Florida Expressway
Authority and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority had toll services suspended,
according to Fox 35 Orlando.
At Folly Beach, S.C., southwest of Charleston, Gaby
Trompeter loaded her car at her beachfront home preparing to evacuate to
Augusta, Georgia.
Trompeter, a 50-year-old goldsmith who designs and makes
jewelry, remembers Hurricane Hugo when she stayed in Savannah, Georgia, in
1989.
A year ago when what has been described as a 1,000-year
flood inundated South Carolina there was so much water on the road near her
house she couldn't get out for three days.
"If it brings a lot of rain, more than the storm last
year, why would I want to stay?" she said.
On the Georgia coast, 92-year-old Lou Arcangeli saw two of
his adult children come to his home on Tybee Island to help prepare and
evacuate if necessary.
"It's serious," said Arcangeli, who has lived in
the Savannah area since 1979, when Hurricane David became the last hurricane to
make landfall on Georgia's 100-mile coast. "I'm going to keep an eye on it
and not wait until the last minute. As far as I'm concerned, what's going to
happen is going to happen."
Farmers in Matthew's path scrambled to protect their crops.
In South Carolina, Jeremy Cannon was harvesting his soybeans a week early after
waiting too long before last year's record rainstorm. He watched his soybeans
and cotton crops slowly drown as 20 inches of rain fell, costing him $800,000.
"I don't want to lose a single soybean this year if I
don't have to," Cannon said. "The Lord says pray without ceasing. And
that's what I've been doing — in the fields, near the barn — just praying all
the time. I don't want to find out what I'll have to do if I get wiped out for
another year."
In the coastal Georgia city of Brunswick, a judge suspended
the murder trial for Ross Harris, the man accused of leaving his son to die in
a hot car, until Monday because of the impending storm.
