(AP) — Gaining fury as it closed in, Hurricane Matthew steamed toward Florida with winds of 140 mph Thursday as 2 million people across the Southeast were warned to board up their homes and flee inland to escape the most powerful storm to threaten the Atlantic coast in more than a decade.

"The storm has already killed people. We should expect the same impact in Florida," Florida Gov. Rick Scott said as the skies began darkening from Matthew's outer bands of rain.

By late morning, the hurricane had grown from a possibly devastating Category 3 storm to a potentially catastrophic Category 4.

It roared over the Bahamas and was expected to scrape nearly the entire length of Florida's Atlantic coast beginning Thursday evening. From there, forecasters said, it could push its way just off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina before veering off to sea.

About 2 million people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were told to head for safety, and interstate highways were turned into one-way routes to enable them to get out quickly. Scott said Florida could be looking at its biggest evacuation ever.

Forecasters said the storm's fiercest winds appeared unlikely to strike Miami or Fort Lauderdale, the most densely populated areas in Florida, with about 4.4 million residents. Those cities were expected to get tropical storm-force winds of between 39 mph and 73 mph.

Instead, forecasters said the West Palm Beach and Cape Canaveral areas farther north could get the brunt of the storm.

The last Category 3 storm or higher to hit the U.S. was Wilma in October 2005. It sliced across Florida with 120 mph winds, killing five people and causing an estimated $21 billion in damage.

As people hurried for higher ground, authorities in South Carolina said a motorist died on Wednesday after being shot by deputies in a gun battle that erupted after he sped away from a checkpoint along a storm evacuation route.

Matthew killed at least 29 people in the Caribbean as it roared through Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. Twenty-three of those deaths were in Haiti, where many towns were cut off by the storm and the full magnitude of the death and destruction was still unclear two days later.

In the Bahamas, authorities reported many downed trees and power lines but no immediate deaths.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, Matthew was 180 miles southeast of West Palm Beach, Florida, and moving toward the city at about 14 mph. Nearly all of Florida's Atlantic coast and Georgia's entire coast were under hurricane warnings.

With hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 60 miles from the storm's center, Matthew could wreak havoc along the coast even if it were to stay just offshore.

Forecasters said it could dump up to 15 inches of rain in some spots and cause a storm surge of 9 feet.

Daniel Myras, who has lived for 25 years in Daytona Beach, where he owns the Cruisin Cafe two blocks from the boardwalk, struggled to find enough plywood to board up his restaurant.

"We're not going to take any chances on this one," he said. "I have the feeling that this one is the one that makes Daytona realize that we need to get ready for storms. A lot of people here, they laugh, and say they've been through storms before and they're not worried. But I think this is the one that's going to give us a wake-up call."

Patients were transferred from two Florida waterfront hospitals and a nursing home near Daytona Beach to safer locations.

Major theme parks in inland Orlando remained open, but Walt Disney World and Universal Studios canceled Halloween events Thursday night.

The Fort Lauderdale Airport closed to all flights late in the morning.

Deborah Whyte walked her dogs at Jupiter Beach Park in the morning to check the surf.

"We boarded up our house and I boarded up my store" in Tequesta. "And we're just hunkering down and waiting for it," she said.

But others rushed to leave.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal ordered a mandatory evacuation of the entire Georgia 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.

On Tybee Island, home to Georgia's largest public beach, Loren Kook loaded up his pickup truck with suitcases and a computer and planned to drive to metro Atlanta.

"It seems like a lot of the longtime residents are staying," said Kook, who moved to the coast four years ago. "I've never sat through a Category Whatever. I'll watch it on TV." </s> LES CAYES/PORT-AU-PRINCE - Hurricane Matthew edged closer to Haiti on Monday, bringing 130-mile-per-hour winds and torrential rain that could wreak havoc in the Caribbean nation, but some 2,000 people in one coastal town refused to evacuate.

The center of Matthew, a violent Category 4 storm, is expected to near southwestern Haiti and Jamaica on Monday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Crawling north toward Haiti's Les Cayes, Jamaica and Cuba at 6 miles per hour, the storm could be just as slow leaving, giving its winds and rain more time to cause damage.

"We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew, which will expose Haiti to much more rain, and the country is particularly vulnerable to flooding," said Ronald Semelfort, director of Haiti's national meteorology center.

The storm comes at a bad time for Haiti. The poorest country in the Americas is set to hold a long-delayed presidential election next Sunday.

A combination of weak government and precarious living conditions make the country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 200,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in 2010.

"Even in normal times, when we have rain we have flooding that sometimes kills people," said Semelfort, comparing Matthew to 1963's Hurricane Flora, which swept away entire villages and killed thousands in Haiti.

Matthew is expected to produce between 15 to 40 inches (38 to 101 cm) of rain in parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, forming potentially fatal flash floods and landslides, the NHC said.

In Jamaica, dawn broke on Monday to reveal partially blue skies and only a slight breeze, making it harder for officials to convince some of the vulnerable to evacuate.

Nonetheless, many residents had already boarded up windows and flocked to supermarkets to stock up on food, water, flashlights and beer.

Charles Bernimolin, the team leader of a U.N. Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) delegation that had flown into Kingston, remained worried, despite projections that showed the storm sparing Jamaica the worst of its fury.

"We are always concerned. The track is not important," he said. "The important thing is that it is moving very, very slowly and is very big.

"If I were Jamaican, I would take a Category 5 storm that moves very quickly, rather than this. The quantity of water, the landslides - the people will lose everything."

In Cuba, which Matthew is due to reach on Tuesday, evacuation operations were well underway, with most tourists in the eastern town of Santiago de Cuba moved inland and given instructions on where to shelter in hotels during the hurricane.

Although many people had voluntarily shifted their belongings into neighbors' houses, with some even hunkering down in cliff-side caves they said were safe, the sun was shining on Monday morning, and some locals chose to fish in the port area.

"I won't take shelter until the wind picks up some more," said Erixan Cuevas, 40, a security guard who was fishing with friends at Santiago's port. "We are pretty worried."

Matthew was about 220 miles southeast of Kingston at 8 a.m. EDT Monday and moving north toward Haiti, the NHC said.

In Haiti, some streets were already flooded in Les Cayes, a town of about 70,000 people. But Haitian officials said about 2,000 residents of the La Savane neighborhood of Les Cayes refused to heed government calls to leave their seaside homes, even though they were just a few miles from where the center of the hurricane is forecast to make landfall.

Early on Monday morning, most people in Les Cayes were still at home, just feet away from the sea. But closer to the town center, many were out and about, even though schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday.

Poor Haitians are at times reluctant to leave their homes in the face of impending storms, fearing their belongings will be stolen.

The chief of police for the southern region, Luc Pierre, said it was almost impossible to evacuate such a large number of people.

"I would have to arrest all those people and take them to a safe place. This is very difficult," he said, adding that the power had already gone off in the town.

Only a few families had opted to move to a high school in La Savane, designated as a shelter for up to 600 people. On Sunday night it was without electricity and lit only by candlelight.

"There are babies crying here; there is nothing at all," said Nadja, 32, who was pregnant with her fourth child. </s> LES CAYES, Haiti - - Hurricane Matthew headed for Haiti on Monday, where towns and villages braced for "catastrophic" floods and mudslides that forecasters fear will be triggered by 140 mile-per-hour winds and up to 3 feet of rain over its denuded hills.

The storm is now forecast to reach the Bahamas on Tuesday and possibly reach Florida by Thursday as a major hurricane, though weaker than at present, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Before that, it will hit Cuba.

"It has the potential of being catastrophic," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the Miami-based hurricane center, when asked about Matthew's expected impact on Haiti.

Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said 30,000 people were in areas of risk who should be moved before the storm hits.

However, in Haiti's largest slum, the seaside Cite Soleil in capital Port-au-Prince, Mayor Frederic Hislain said 150,000 people whose homes he said were threatened needed to be bussed to safer places.

"Those people are living all along the seashore in a bunch of huts which usually can't even really protect them from ordinary rain. Now we are talking about a strong hurricane. Imagine the disaster we may have to face here."

Many people are reluctant to leave their homes due to fears their belonging will be stolen.

Matthew, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history, was expected to hit Haiti Monday night, the U.S. hurricane center said. It is expected to bring between 15 and 40 inches of rain to parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Crawling north at just 7 miles per hour, the storm threatens to linger enough for its winds and rain to cause great damage. Haiti is prone to flash floods and mudslides because most of its hillsides have been stripped bare by people cutting down trees to make charcoal to sell for fuel. </s> JACKSONVILLE, Fla./PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hurricane Matthew's winds diminished on Saturday, Oct. 8, as it headed towards the Carolinas after killing almost 900 people in Haiti and causing major flooding and widespread power outages in the southeastern United States.

As winds dropped to less than 85 miles per hour, making it a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale of 1 to 5, the storm was about 20 miles (35 km) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was moving northeast at 12 miles per hour.

The number of deaths in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, jumped to at least 877 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of tolls from officials.

Matthew rampaged through Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mph winds and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm hurled the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.

At least three towns in the hills and coast of Haiti's fertile western tip reported dozens of people killed, including the farming village of Chantal whose mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.

"A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn’t get out," said 27-year-old driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald.

"People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot," said Jean-Donald, who had been married for only a year. His young daughter stood by his side, crying "Mommy."

With cellphone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.

The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was en route to Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh-water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.

The NHC predicted the storm would possibly be striking the U.S. coast on Saturday morning or afternoon.

"Regardless of whether or not the center makes landfall, hurricane-force winds in the northern eyewall will lash much of the coast of South Carolina," an NHC advisory said.

Matthew sideswiped Florida's coast with winds of up to 120 mph but did not make landfall there.

There were at least four storm-related deaths in Florida but no immediate reports of significant damage in cities and towns where Matthew swamped streets, toppled trees and knocked out power to about 1 million households and businesses.

Governors in several states were expected to give news conferences on Saturday morning.

About 450,000 were without power in Georgia and South Carolina on Saturday, utility companies said.

In Florida, two people were killed by falling trees and an elderly couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator while sheltering from the storm.

Hurricane and flash flood warnings extended through Georgia and South Carolina and into North Carolina early on Saturday.

Forecasters warned of flooding as 15 inches of rain were expected to fall in parts of the region along with massive storm surges and high tides.

Several major roadways were inundated in Charleston, South Carolina, local media reported.

Standing water closed both directions of Interstate 95 highway in Georgia. Some 8 inches of rain had fallen in the Savannah, Georgia area where Matthew downed trees and caused flooding.

Though gradually weakening, Matthew - which triggered mass evacuations along the U.S. coast - was forecast to remain a hurricane until it begins moving away from the U.S. Southeast coast on Sunday, according to the NHC.

President Barack Obama and officials urged people to heed safety instructions. Coastal residents were warned that storm surges could still flood neighborhoods even as Matthew departs the region. </s> Hurricane Matthew, a potentially devastating Category 4 storm, swirled across the Caribbean toward Haiti and Jamaica, where residents frantically stocked up on emergency supplies and authorities urged people to evacuate threatened areas.

Matthew is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history and briefly reached the top classification, Category 5, before weakening slightly to a high-end Category 4 storm with winds of 150 mph (240 kph). It is the strongest hurricane here since Felix in 2007.

While previous forecasts had Matthew passing near or over the eastern tip of Jamaica, the latest projection has it shifting eastward and possibly striking the southwestern tip of Haiti as a Category 3 hurricane on Monday. A hurricane warning has been issued for the impoverished country which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

Deforestation has greatly increased the potential for devastating floods and landslides on Haiti, and combined with the ramshackle structure of many homes and building, this means that Matthew could deal a vicious blow to the country.

After passing Jamaica and Haiti, Matthew is expected to reach Cuba on Tuesday, potentially making a direct hit on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.

A mandatory evacuation of non-essential personnel, including about 700 family members of military personnel, was underway at the base and everyone remaining behind was being told to take shelter, said Julie Ann Ripley, a spokeswoman. There are about 5,500 people living on the base, including 61 men held at the detention center.

The forecast track would also carry Matthew into the Bahamas, with an outside chance of a brush with Florida, though that would be several days away.

"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.

In Haiti, civil protection officials broadcast warnings of a coming storm surge and big waves, saying the country would be "highly threatened" from the approaching system, which is expected to start affecting Haiti and Jamaica Sunday night. They urged families to prepare emergency food and water kits.

Emergency management authorities banned boating, particularly along the impoverished country's southern coastline.

In Jamaica, where there is also a hurricane warning, flooding temporarily closed the road linking the capital to its airport. Carl Ferguson, head of the marine police, said people were starting to heed calls to relocate from small islands and areas near rural waterways.

Residents of the capital, Kingston, crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water, canned food and batteries. In the coastal town of Port Royal, officials were urging residents to seek refuge in government shelters once they open up on Sunday.

Many Jamaicans also began stocking up for the emergency.

At the Azan Super Centre, a supermarket in Kingston, shoppers were scooping up flashlights and gas lamps and other key supplies along with food. The kerosene was already sold out.

"It has been chaos from the morning," owner Melain Azan said.

Shopper Nardia Powell said she was stocking up because she learned a hard lesson when she was unprepared for Hurricane Ivan in 2004, as were many others. "So, I just want to be on the safe side, right?" she said.

Jamaicans are accustomed to intense storms, but Hurricane Matthew looked particularly threatening. At its peak, it was more powerful than Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall on the island in September 1988 and was the most destructive storm in the country's modern history.

As of 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), the storm was centered about 340 miles (550 kilometers) south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was traveling north-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).

Earlier, Matthew skimmed past the northern tip of South America where there were reports of at least two deaths.

But authorities in the area overall breathed a sigh of relief as damage appeared minimal despite flooding in towns along the La Guajira peninsula of Colombia. Some officials were even grateful for the rain after a multi-year drought in the poverty-stricken area.

"Families that evacuated are returning to their homes," said La Guajira Gov. Jorge Velez. "The dikes and wells filled up, the earth is moist, and this benefits agriculture in an area where it hasn't rained for five years, benefiting the community." </s> Hurricane Matthew gained new fury as it hammered the central Bahamas early Thursday, and forecasters said the life-threatening storm is expected to strengthen as it approaches Florida’s heavily populated Atlantic coast.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Matthew, though still a dangerous Category 3 hurricane as the day dawned, was expected to regain status as an even more powerful Category 4 storm in coming hours. Top sustained winds ratcheted up from 115 mph to 125 mph overnight.

As the threat from the major hurricane rose along the Southeast seacoast, the centre extended a hurricane warning area on a large swath of Florida’s east coast farther up to Altamaha Sound, Georgia. And it said a newly expanded hurricane watch area would now reach from the Altamaha Sound to the South Santee River in South Carolina.

In photos: Haiti and Cuba pummelled by Hurricane Matthew

As Matthew put the U.S. in its sights, about 2 million people were encouraged to head inland ahead of the most powerful storm to threaten the Atlantic coast in more than a decade. Matthew killed at least 16 people in the Caribbean as it cut through Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas.

The storm is forecast to near the Florida coast starting Thursday night, potentially as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds. Any slight deviation could mean landfall or it heading farther out to sea. Either way, forecasters say it will come close enough to wreak havoc along the lower part of the East Coast, dumping up to 15 inches in rain in some spots. Storm surge of 5 feet to 8 feet was expected along the coast from central Florida into Georgia.

None of this mattered to John Long, who lives in the Florida town of Cape Canaveral.

“The hype is going to be worse than the actual storm. I feel I can do quite well,” said Long, who owns a bike shop and plans to ride out the storm with his cat in his 32-foot recreational vehicle a half-mile from the ocean. He has lived in the Space Coast area for three decades. “There’s always tremendous buildup and then it’s no stronger than an afternoon thunderstorm. I’m not anticipating that much damage,” he said Wednesday.

“This is a dangerous storm,” Scott said. “The storm has already killed people. We should expect the same impact in Florida.”

Similar warnings were issued in Georgia and the Carolinas, where the storm is expected to arrive by the weekend. The last Category 3 storm or higher to hit the United States was Wilma in October 2005. It made landfall with 120 mph winds in southwest Florida, killing five people as it slashed across the state.

In South Carolina, Gov. Nikki Haley reversed the lanes of Interstate 26 for the first time on Wednesday so that all lanes of traffic were headed west and out of Charleston. Plans to reverse the lanes were put in place after hourslong traffic jams during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Haley planned to call for more evacuations Thursday, which would bring the total to about 500,000 people in the state. Florida urged or ordered about 1.5 million to leave the coast, said Jackie Schutz, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Scott. About 50,000 people were told to go in Georgia.

On Tybee Island, home to Georgia’s largest public beach, Loren Kook was loading up his pickup truck with suitcases and a computer late Wednesday afternoon. He and his wife were trying to decide whether to board up their windows overlooking the marsh grasses of Horsepen Creek before hitting the road to metro Atlanta.

“It seems like a lot of the longtime residents are staying,” said Kook, who moved to the coast four years ago. “I’ve never sat through a Category Whatever. I’ll watch it on TV.”

Early Thursday, Matthew’s centre was about 255 miles southeast of West Palm Beach, Florida, and slogging ever closer at a clip of 12 mph.

Yet despite evacuation orders and dire warnings, Robert and Georgette Tyler said they were staying put in their 500-square foot rental home in Cape Canaveral, undeterred that Matthew might soon be pounding at their door.

Taking a break from putting plywood on windows, Robert Tyler said he feared getting stuck in traffic and that it was too much trouble to pack up his motorcycles and firearms. He has two generators, 50 gallons of fuel and enough food and water for a week. Plus, he is a handyman and his phone will be ringing off the hook once the storm passes.

“It’s part of Florida life I guess, especially on the coast,” he said. </s> The center of Matthew, a violent Category 4 storm, is expected to close in on southwestern Haiti on Monday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has veered from Jamaica but the slow-moving cyclone is still forecast to bring gale-force winds and dump hazardous amounts of rain on the island.

Crawling north at just 6 miles per hour, the storm threatens to linger enough for its winds and rain to cause great damage, especially over Haiti where deforestation exacerbates flooding and mudslides.

A combination of weak government and precarious living conditions make the country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 200,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in 2010.

"We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew," said Ronald Semelfort, director of Haiti's national meteorology center.

"Even in normal times, when we have rain we have flooding that sometimes kills people," said Semelfort, comparing Matthew to 1963's Hurricane Flora, which swept away entire villages and killed thousands in Haiti.

Matthew was about 205 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, the NHC said. It is expected to bring between 15 and 40 inches of rain to parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, setting off potentially fatal flash floods and landslides, the NHC said.

The storm comes at a bad time for Haiti. The poorest country in the Americas is set to hold a long-delayed presidential election next Sunday.

On Monday, Frederic Hislain, mayor of the country's largest slum, the oceanside Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, called on the government to evacuate 150,000 people whose homes he said were threatened.

In Jamaica, dawn broke on Monday to reveal partially blue skies and only a slight breeze, making it harder for officials to convince some of the vulnerable to evacuate.

Nonetheless, many residents had already boarded up windows and flocked to supermarkets to stock up on food, water, flashlights and beer. In both Jamaica and Haiti, authorities shut the main airports to wait for the storm to pass.

Charles Bernimolin, the team leader of a U.N. Disaster Assessment and Coordination delegation that had flown into Kingston, remained worried, despite projections that showed the storm sparing Jamaica the worst of its fury.

"We are always concerned. The track is not important," he said. "The important thing is that it is moving very, very slowly and is very big.

"If I were Jamaican, I would take a Category 5 storm that moves very quickly, rather than this. The quantity of water, the landslides - the people will lose everything."

In Cuba, which Matthew is due to reach on Tuesday, evacuation operations were well underway, with most tourists in the eastern town of Santiago de Cuba moved inland and given instructions on where to shelter in hotels during the hurricane.

Although many people had voluntarily shifted their belongings into neighbors' houses, with some even hunkering down in cliff-side caves they said were safe, the sun was shining on Monday morning, and some locals chose to fish in the port area.

"I won't take shelter until the wind picks up some more," said Erixan Cuevas, 40, a security guard who was fishing with friends at Santiago's port. "We are pretty worried."

Cuban President Raul Castro visited the Cuban military perimeter of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo on Sunday even as non-essential U.S. personnel were being evacuated in preparation for Matthew, which is forecast to pass directly over the area claimed by both countries for decades.

Castro said he reviewed plans to shelter soldiers and protect weapons.

In Haiti, streets were already flooded in coastal Les Cayes, a town of about 70,000 people that lies in the Matthew's projected path.

Haitian officials said about 2,000 residents of the La Savane neighborhood of Les Cayes refused to heed government calls to leave their seaside homes and only a few families had yet opted to move to a high school in La Savane, designated as a shelter for up to 600 people. On Sunday night it was without electricity and lit only by candlelight.

On Monday morning, most people in Les Cayes were still at home, just feet away from the sea. Closer to the town center, many were out and about.

Poor Haitians are at times reluctant to leave their homes in the face of impending storms, fearing their belongings will be stolen.

The chief of police for the southern region, Luc Pierre, said it was almost impossible to evacuate such a large number of people against their will.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said it deployed two disaster response teams to Haiti and Jamaica to coordinate relief efforts, if requested. </s> LES CAYES, Haiti — The fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade battered Haiti’s southwest coast with 145-mph winds and surging seas that flooded coastal towns on Tuesday, tearing at trees and rooftops before moving out to sea.

Hurricane Matthew dumped torrential rain across the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with Dominican Republic, where four people were killed by collapsing walls and mudslides. In Haiti, at least one person was killed.

There was no immediate word on other potential casualties. But Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters in Washington the U.S. Navy was looking at possibly sending an aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, and other ships to the region to aid relief efforts.

The United States has already offered Haiti the use of some helicopters, said Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph, who added that damage to housing and crops in the impoverished country was apparently extensive.

“It is too early to do a real assessment, but it has been very serious,” Anick Joseph told Reuters, saying roads to the south were blocked, phones were down and the weather made overflights were impossible.

The eye of the violent Category 4 Hurricane Matthew passed over Haiti’s western tip early on Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, bringing devastating winds, heavy rains and a storm surge with massive waves.

It was forecast to remain extremely powerful as it made its way to Cuba and the Bahamas, and a hurricane watch was issued for parts of southeast Florida, which the forecasters said Matthew could reach late on Thursday.

President Barack Obama canceled a trip to Florida scheduled for Wednesday because of the potential impact of Matthew, the White House said.

The Haitian port town of Les Cayes, named for the sandy islands off its shore and twice destroyed by hurricanes in the 18th century, was hard hit.

“The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic — the city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places and you can barely move around, the wind has damaged many houses and taken away their rooftops,” said Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme, speaking from the town of about 70,000 people.

One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the nearby beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. A fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached, and another was missing.

Overnight, Haitians living in vulnerable coastal shacks on the western Tiburon Peninsula frantically sought shelter as Matthew closed in. Several districts in southern Haiti were flooded, with crops inundated with ocean and rain water.

Hurricane conditions remained in parts of Haiti and as much as 3 feet of rain was forecast to fall over hills that are largely deforested and prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shantytown in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The hurricane comes at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings in Haiti after a 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people.

The center of Matthew was 55 miles south of the eastern tip of Cuba at 2 p.m. EDT. It was moving north at about 10 mph, the hurricane center said.

Cuba’s Communist government traditionally puts extensive efforts into saving lives and property in the face of storms, and authorities have spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm was expected to hit the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo in the far southeast of Cuba later on Tuesday, passing close to the disputed U.S. naval base and military prison and also to a small Cuban city of the same name.

The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children of service personnel as the storm approached.

Guantanamo’s mountainous terrain is the country’s second coffee producer after nearby Santiago, and the storm poses a major threat to the current harvest.

A hurricane watch was in effect from Deerfield Beach, Florida to the Volusia-Brevard county line, a coastal area near Cape Canaveral, which the storm could reach on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

“Direct hurricane impacts are possible in Florida,” the center said. It added that tropical storm or hurricane conditions could also affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore.

Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby. </s> As Category 4 Hurricane Matthew's eye passes over Les Cayes, Haiti. this morning, the storm remains a churning behemoth. Winds topping 140 miles per hour have been reported in Haiti's westernmost tip, while up to three feet of rain pours onto mountain villages in the nearby hillsides. Across the border in the Dominican Republic, the dirty side of the cane has spawned tornadoes and vicious windstorms.

As the Caribbean hunkers down for the storm to pass, the threat to the Sunshine State is still strong this morning. In its latest update, NOAA's Hurricane Center says parts of Florida's east coast and the Keys are likely to come under official watches soon.

"Tropical storm and/or hurricane watches are likely for portions of the Florida peninsula and Florida Keys later this morning," NOAA reports as of 5 a.m.

Storm model tracks are still mostly in agreement with yesterday's westward shift for the storm. NOAA's latest forecast calls for the storm to veer toward Florida by Thursday:

Of course, three days out forecasts are still far from certain in terms of where the storm will hit and how strong it will be by then. Unlike many hurricanes that hit Cuba and Hispaniola, Matthew looks likely to mostly avoid the mountain ranges on those islands. That means it should stay strong as it barrels over the flat Bahamas.

"Matthew poses an unusually widespread threat to the U.S. East Coast, with impacts possible from Florida to Maine," write Bob Henson and Jeff Masters at Weather Underground.

Today, though, all eyes are on Haiti, where it's been almost a decade since a storm this strong crossed the island nation. Video shot early this morning as the eye approached showed a violent tempest:
Hurricane Matthew kills at least 26 people on the island of Hispaniola; 22 in Haiti and four more in the Dominican Republic. The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicts the storm, currently a Category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 km/h), will strengthen as it moves across the Bahamas tonight and tomorrow, and be near the east coast of Florida by tomorrow evening.