South Carolina governor warns of scams

Matthew was downgraded to a Category 2 storm, and as of 5 a.m. ET Saturday, the hurricane was located about 20 miles southeast of Hilton Head, S.C., moving at 12 mph.

The flooding disaster is forecast to slowly unfold over the next several days as all that rain – more than a foot in places – flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing more inundation in numerous same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999. “I’m praying for none”, Haley said.

The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was heading for Haiti to support relief efforts.

“We’re all blessed that Matthew stayed off our coast”, he said, while describing the extensive damage in Florida.

People across southwest Haiti were digging through the wreckage of their homes Friday, salvaging what they could of their meager possessions after devastating Hurricane Matthew killed hundreds of people and created a new crisis for the impoverished country.

Wind and storm surge damage could cause property losses of between $4 billion and $6 billion – and that’s just for insured homes and commercial buildings, CoreLogic, a real estate research firm, said Saturday morning.

In the US, Matthew claimed six lives and left 1.6 million without power, with some areas not expected to recover for months.

Hurricane Matthew is a Category 1 storm, with maximum sustained winds at 85 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Though the storm has weakened, serious threats remain before Matthew becomes a post-tropical cyclone Saturday night or Sunday, the hurricane center said.

While Matthew’s wind speed had dropped considerably by the time it hit the Southeast coast, the storm will still go down as one of the most potent hurricanes on record, based on such factors as wind energy and longevity, and one of the most long-lived major hurricanes, too.

Before Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) released a loan of $8 million (7.14 million euros) to the United Nations Children’s Fund to deal with a worsening cholera epidemic in the country.

“We don’t have any contact with Port-au-Prince yet and there are places we still haven’t reached”, Jeune said, as he and a team of Civil Protection agents in orange vests combed the area. Haley said the email provides a link to get the update.

Tens of thousands of people have also been left homeless on the island.

In Florida, 775,000 were without power, according to state utilities, while in SC 433,000 had no power, Governor Nikki Haley said.

Power outages throughout coastal areas numbered almost 300,000 Saturday night.

In Savannah, Georgia, a historic town of moss-draped squares and antebellum mansions, floodwaters several feet deep submerged a long stretch of President Street, which links downtown to the highway to Georgia’s Tybee Island. She said they were hungry and desperately needed food.

Chandler Brunson and her fiance were among several people on the island trying to make it back home after they evacuated. The storm is now projecting hurricane-force winds 45 miles away from its center – early Saturday, gusts of up to 55 mph were recorded in Orangeburg, some 75 miles inland from Charleston.

“I think we’re going to have a pine tree splitting our house”, Brunson said.

Flooding and risky winds have ravaged the southeast as ABC News reported 400,000 people are without power in SC as of Saturday morning.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory warned people not to let their guard down just because Matthew was losing steam.

Hurricane Matthew continues to move north off the Georgia coast and its center is forecast to move near or over the SC coast Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center reports.

Flooding plagued near-coastal communities in Georgia and SC on Saturday morning.