KINGSTON, Jamaica — Hurricane Matthew has been downgraded to a Category 4 storm as it continues roaring across the Caribbean Sea on a course that puts Jamaica, as well as parts of Haiti and Cuba, in the path of its potentially devastating winds and rain.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center called it the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Felix in 2007, and said Matthew will be approaching Jamaica late Sunday night. It is expected to reach the eastern part of the island on Monday.

Jamaicans began clearing out store shelves as they stocked up emergency supplies and Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday called an urgent meeting of Parliament to discuss preparations for 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. "We can never be too careful."

Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica's National Meteorological Service, said the first effects of the storm may be felt as early as Saturday.

"We do consider it serious," Thompson said. "We are all on high alert."

Jamaicans are accustomed to intense tropical weather but Hurricane Matthew looked particularly threatening. With wind speeds of 160 mph (260 kph), 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.

"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane center in Miami. "There is no certainty of that at this point."

Matthew was expected to bring heavy rainfall especially to the eastern tip and higher elevations, which could trigger flooding and landslides, Thompson said.

Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 centimeters) with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches (63 centimeters) in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.

Kingston is in the southeastern corner of Jamaica and is expected to experience flooding. The government issued a hurricane watch on Friday, and a tropical storm watch was issued for Haiti's southwest coast form the southern border it shares with the Dominican Republic to the capital of Port-au-Prince.

As of 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), the storm was centered about 420 miles (675 kilometers) southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 7 mph (11 kph).

Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 miles (75 kilometers) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205 miles (335 kilometers).

It brought extremely high tides, storm surge and heavy rain to Colombia, prompting authorities to declare an alert as local TV broadcast images of cars and tree trunks surging though flooded streets in coastal areas. Local media in La Guajira province reported that one person died in flooding.

Matthew caused at least one death when it entered the Caribbean on Wednesday, with officials in St. Vincent reporting a 16-year-old boy was crushed by a boulder as he tried to clear a blocked drain. </s> Hurricane Matthew has strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale while moving west- southwestward over the Caribbean Sea, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Friday.

Matthew was located about 495 miles (800 kilometers) southeast of Kingston, Jamaica with maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour (185 km/h), the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

The center of Matthew will pass north of the Guajira Peninsula later Friday and remain over the central Caribbean Sea through early Sunday, the NHC said. </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> 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> KINGSTON, Jamaica — Hurricane Matthew is roaring across the Caribbean Sea as a monster Category 5 storm on a course that puts Jamaica, as well as parts of Haiti and Cuba, in the path of its potentially devastating winds and rain.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center called it the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Felix in 2007, and said Matthew will be approaching Jamaica late Sunday night. It is expected to reach the eastern part of the island on Monday.

Jamaicans began clearing out store shelves as they stocked up emergency supplies and Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday called an urgent meeting of Parliament to discuss preparations for 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. "We can never be too careful."

Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica's National Meteorological Service, said the first effects of the storm may be felt as early as Saturday.

"We do consider it serious," Thompson said. "We are all on high alert."

Jamaicans are accustomed to intense tropical weather but Hurricane Matthew looked particularly threatening. With wind speeds of 160 mph (260 kph), 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.

"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane in Miami. "There is no certainty of that at this point."

Matthew was expected to bring heavy rainfall especially to the eastern tip and higher elevations, which could trigger flooding and landslides, Thompson said.

Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 ) with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches (63 ) in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.

Kingston is in the southeastern corner of Jamaica and is expected to experience flooding. The government issued a hurricane watch on Friday, and a tropical storm watch was issued for Haiti's southwest coast form the southern border it shares with the Dominican Republic to the capital of Port-au-Prince.

As of 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), the storm was about 440 miles (710 ) southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 7 mph (11 kph).

It brought extremely high tides, storm surge and heavy rain to Colombia, prompting authorities to declare an alert as local TV broadcast images of cars and tree trunks surging though flooded streets in coastal areas. Local media in La Guajira province reported that one person died in flooding. </s> Hurricane Matthew has rapidly strengthened into a powerful Category 4 storm, and a hurricane watch has now been issued for Jamaica.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says Matthew is packing top sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph) after gaining new strength Friday over the central Caribbean. The storm is located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Punta Gallinas, Colombia, and about 465 miles (750 kilometers) southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

The center says that as of 5 p.m. Friday, the storm is moving west-southwest at 9 mph (15 kph).

In addition to a hurricane watch for Jamaica, authorities also issued a tropical storm watch for the southwestern coast of Haiti. The tropical storm watch is in effect from Haiti's southern border with the Dominican Republic to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.

Forecasters say Matthew is expected to turn toward the west-northwest by Saturday night and then toward the northwest on Sunday. The center says the storm's expected path over the central Caribbean is forecast to bring Matthew near Jamaica on Sunday. </s> Vulnerable Haiti braced for flash floods and violent winds from the extremely dangerous Hurricane Matthew as the powerful storm kept on a path early Monday aiming at the hemisphere's poorest country.

The eye of the approaching Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (230 kph) late Sunday, was expected to pass to the east of Jamaica and then cross over or be very close to the southwestern tip of Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It was predicted to hit the lightly populated eastern tip of Cuba on Tuesday afternoon.

Forecasters said as much as 40 inches of rain could fall on some isolated areas of Haiti, raising fears of deadly mudslides and floods in the heavily deforested country where many families live in flimsy houses with corrugated metal roofs.

"Some of us will die but I pray it won't be a lot," said Serge Barionette in the southern town of Gressier, where a river recurrently bursts its banks during serious storms.

A hurricane warning was in effect for Haiti, and Cuba. Rain was already lashing parts of Jamaica and flooding some homes, but forecasters said the southern Haitian countryside around Jeremie and Les Cayes could see the worst of the rains and punishing winds.

"Wherever that center passes close to would see the worst winds and that's what's projected to happen for the western tip of Haiti," said John Cangilosi, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. center. "There is a big concern for rains there and also a big concern for storm surge."

Matthew is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history and briefly reached the top classification, Category 5, becoming the strongest hurricane in the region since Felix in 2007. The hurricane center said the storm appeared to be on track to pass east of Florida through the Bahamas, but it was too soon to predict with certainty whether it would threaten any spot on the U.S. East Coast.

Officials with Haiti's civil protection agency said there were roughly 1,300 emergency shelters across the country, enough to hold up to 340,000 people. Authorities broadcast warnings over the radio telling people to swiftly heed evacuation warnings, trying to counter a common tendency for people to try to stay in their homes to protect them during natural disasters.

In a brief address carried on state radio, interim President Jocelerme Privert urged Haitians to listen closely to official warnings and be ready to move. "To those people living in houses that could collapse, it's necessary that you leave these houses to take refuge in schools and churches," he said.

Teams of civil protection officials walked the streets of Les Cayes and other areas urging residents to secure their homes, prepare emergency kits and warn their neighbors. They also evacuated people from some outlying islands.

As of 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), the storm was centered about 325 miles (520 kilometers) south-southwest of Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince. It was moving northwest at 5 mph (7 kph).

A hurricane warning was posted for the southeastern Bahamas. A hurricane watch was in effect for the central Bahamas and the Turks and Caico Islands, and a tropical storm warning was issued for parts of the Dominican Republic, where authorities began mandatory evacuations of areas at risk for flooding.

The hurricane earlier had been projected to be closer to Jamaica, but still was a danger to the island of less than 3 million inhabitants.

"The center of the system is looking more likely that it will pass to the east of Jamaica but it won't miss it by that much, so they are still going to see impacts," Cangilosi said. "The impacts are maybe going to be a little lower there than they would be in Haiti and eastern Cuba."

After passing Jamaica and Haiti, Matthew was projected to reach Cuba. The center was expected to pass about 50 miles east of the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, where authorities evacuated about 700 spouses and children of service members on military transport planes to Florida.

The U.S. installation has a population of about 5,500, including 61 men held at the detention center for terrorism suspects. Navy Capt. David Culpepper, the base commander, said emergency shelters had been set up and authorities were bracing for 80 mph winds and storm surge and heavy rain that could threaten some low-lying areas, including around the power plant and water desalination facility.

"We have no choice but to prepare ourselves for to take a frontal assault if you will," Culpepper said. </s> Matthew, with winds at about 150 miles per hour (240 kph), is expected to make landfall as a major storm on Jamaica's southern coast, home to the capital, Kingston, and its only oil refinery. Stormy weather could begin on Sunday.

Simultaneously. the storm is forecast to lash southern Haiti, dumping up to 40 inches (101 cm) of rain there and up to 25 inches (64 cm) in Jamaica, possibly triggering life-threatening landslides and floods, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Albert Moulion, Haiti's interior ministry spokesman, said authorities had started voluntary evacuations of residents of small, exposed sandy islands in the south as a precaution.

"We have already started evacuations," he said. "The national center of emergency operations has been activated."

By early Tuesday, Matthew is due in eastern Cuba, with a path that could take it over the colonial city of Santiago de Cuba and the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo.

The U.S. ordered the mandatory evacuation of approximately 700 spouses and children from the base on Saturday, saying it was airlifting them to a station in Pensacola, Florida. Cuban President Raul Castro visited Santiago de Cuba on Saturday to oversee storm preparations, Cuban TV footage showed.

The ferocity of the storm, the strongest in the Carribbean since Hurricane Felix in 2007, has led to concerns of economic devastation in the poor countries in its path.

"The hurricane will cause an interruption, obviously, in our economic activities here," Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Reuters in an interview on Saturday, saying that tourism and agriculture could be most affected.

"We have allocated all the resources we can given our fiscal restraints and I think that the country is prepared for the hurricane," Holness said.

Cash-strapped Jamaica has been suffering a long economic slowdown and is under an International Monetary Fund program to tackle high debt.

In Kingston, residents stocked up on canned foods, water and flashlights in preparation for the storm, while banks and offices boarded up their windows. Fishermen were told not to go to sea.

In MegaMart, a supermarket, Ennis St. Patrice and his wife, Monique, bought big bottles of water.

"We’ve had these kind of occurrences in the past and it is generally bad, because Jamaica does not have proper infrastructure,” said St Patrice, a trade unionist for Jamaica's meteorological office. “In simple rainfall, we have flooding.” </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.
Hurricane Matthew, at Category 4 strength with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h), temporarily stalls as it heads towards Jamaica and Haiti. Weather forecasters expect tropical storm conditions today with landfall tomorrow. Further, they expect rainfall of 20 inches, with up to 40 inches in some parts of southern Haiti.