Jamaicans are accustomed to intense storms, but Hurricane Matthew looked particularly threatening. Jamaicans “basically have daylight today, they have tonight and they have daylight tomorrow to take care of what needs to be done,” he said. “We can never be too careful.”įeltgen said storm force winds and rain will arrive well before the center of the storm. “I left work to pick up a few items, candles, tin stuff, bread,” 41-year-old Angella Wage said at a crowded store in the Half Way Tree area of the capital, Kingston. Many Jamaicans also began stocking up for the emergency. Residents of the capital, Kingston, crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water, canned food and batteries, and there was already flooding in the coastal town of Port Royal, where officials are urging residents to seek refuge in government shelters once they open up on Sunday. Carl Ferguson, head of the marine police, said people were starting to heed calls to relocate from small islands and areas near rural waterways. In Jamaica, high surf began pounding the coast and flooding temporarily closed the road linking the capital to its airport. Jamaicans flock to the supermarkets to take care of last-minute shopping pending the arrival of Hurricane Matthew. There was also concern that heavy rain across much of the country could dampen turnout for Sunday’s nationwide referendum on a historic peace accord between the government and leftist rebels. Local TV broadcast images of cars and tree trunks surging though flooded streets in coastal areas.Ĭolombian authorities closed access to beaches and urged residents living near the ocean to move inland in preparation for storm surges that they said would be most intense on Saturday. They said a 67-year-old man was swept to his death by a flash flood in an area where it hadn’t rained for four years. Authorities said at least 18 houses were damaged along the La Guajira peninsula of Colombia, which has been suffering from a multi-year drought. “It’s too early to rule out what impacts, if any, would occur in the United States and Florida,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman at the Hurricane Center.Īs Matthew skimmed past the northern tip of South America there were reports of heavy flooding and at least one death the second attributed to the storm. The forecast track would carry it across Cuba and into the Bahamas, with an outside chance of a brush with Florida, though that would be several days away. The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Matthew’s winds had slipped from a peak of 160mph to a still-potentially devastating 140 mph and it was expected to near Jamaica and southwestern Haiti early Monday.
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