MIAMI (AP) – Anxious Florida residents raided grocery store shelves and North Carolina called for the evacuation of three barrier islands as Hurricane Matthew – the most powerful Atlantic storm in about a decade – threatened to rake a large swath of the East Coast in the coming days.
The storm roared across the Caribbean on Tuesday, slamming into the western part of Haiti. While it’s too soon to know if it will make a direct hit on Florida or somewhere else along the U.S. coast, Matthew is expected to create dangerous conditions. A hurricane watch was in place for parts of Florida, which was already seeing rain bands from the storm.
Simone Corrado and her husband tried to buy water at a Publix in their hometown of Davie, about 20 minutes from Miami Beach, and mostly found empty shelves. They were worried the roof of their garden-style apartment would leak during heavy rain.
“I got scared because all that was left at Publix was just the pricey water,” Corrado said. “They really put the fear into you here. On the television screen every few minutes is the ‘beep, beep, beep’ storm alert.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott met with emergency officials along the coast, starting out in the Keys and traveling north. At a news conference in Daytona Beach, he noted that the storm’s predicted path can change quickly and warned people to be ready.