(CNN) A few months after the massive 2010 earthquake in Haiti, I stood on the terrace of my hotel and looked out onto the Champs de Mars plaza, a central square in Port-au-Prince that had become an encampment for people who'd lost their homes.

It was May and the skies looked ominous as a storm hurtled toward the Haitian capital. What would become of all the Haitians left homeless in the quake, I wondered. How would they make it through the rainy season?

That storm, of course, paled in comparison to the force of Hurricane Matthew, which pummeled Haiti on Tuesday with 145 mph winds and heavy rain.

The worst hit was the southern port city of Les Cayes, but all of Haiti's 10 million people were exposed to danger. Among those, some 60,000 people still live in the post-quake camps that journalists referred to as "makeshift." The International Organization for Migration estimates 45 such camps still exist in the Port-au-Prince area.

Somehow, they became permanent; they became "home" for those who had nowhere to go. Thousands more live in flimsy homes that can easily wash away.

I tried to imagine what that must feel like: to be huddled with babies and children under plastic sheeting or a patched-together roof with little between you and the ground in the fury of a Category 4 hurricane.

Matthew was another "catastrophe," the word Haitians used when they spoke of the earthquake.

It hardly seemed fair that Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, should be punished this way again.

In its 240 years of existence, Haitians have died because of dictatorships, violence, corruption, mismanagement and disease. And they have died in earthquakes, storms and floods. Two years before the 2010 quake, 800 people were dead and damages totaled $1 billion as three hurricanes and a tropical storm hit Haiti in a matter of four weeks.

And then came the 7.0 magnitude quake that killed as many as 200,000 people. Walking around Port-au-Prince in its aftermath, I saw one apocalyptic block after another. There was nothing left.

Haiti's geographic location in the Caribbean and on the Gonave microplate makes it vulnerable to natural disasters; it is considered the fifth most disaster-prone country in the world. But that doesn't fully explain why Hurricane Matthew may exact such a grave toll.

In many ways still reeling from the 2010 earthquake, Haiti simply lacks the resources to prepare for such destruction.

Some Haitians I spoke with then actually saw the quake as a new beginning. This was a chance to rebuild the country all shiny and new. And indeed, the world promised Haiti $13 billion to rebuild.

But the optimism faded as fast as it had risen and the reality is that there is little to show for the billions pledged.

Why? The answers are, of course, long and complicated. Journalist Jonathan Katz provided his take in a 2013 book, "The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster."

Katz says 93% of the money went to foreign aid agencies, including the United Nations. Granted, the Haitian government was too weak to handle massive recovery efforts just after the quake but in subsequent months, Katz argues, the money should have been channeled to Haitians who know best how to rebuild their own country. As it stands, little was done in the way of building local structures that would help Haiti respond to a future disaster, like Hurricane Matthew.

In 2016, 60% of Haitians still live in poverty; half do not know how to read or write or have access to health care. Consider that only one in four Haitians have use of a toilet.

On the first anniversary of the earthquake, I returned to Haiti and often on my walks down the streets of Port-au-Prince, I heard people taking God's name or chanting the Lord's Prayer. On Sundays, large crowds congregated before the carcass of the Cathedrale Notre Dame de L'Assomption, a magnificent church that took 30 years to build and only 35 seconds to come tumbling down.

Many of those people told me they'd lost their loved ones, their homes, their things. But they had their faith.

I can imagine that in the aftermath of the hurricane, Haitians will again struggle to see their future. The destruction will come into plain sight. More Haitians will die.

A year after the earthquake, the Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat wrote that "in Haiti, people's spirits never really die." I learned that to be true from spending time with Haitians. And it is what will carry them now.</s>In an island nation still recovering from a devastating earthquake and now smashed by one of the strongest storms in a decade, the true extent of the damage in Haiti from Hurricane Matthew may not be clear for days.

Early Wednesday, communication had been almost entirely cut off in the hardest hit southwestern end of the country and the toll of 11 deaths across the Caribbean will undoubtedly rise as word trickles in from the devastated communities.

“What we know is that many, many houses have been damaged,” Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said. “Some lost rooftops and they’ll have to be replaced while others were totally destroyed.”

The main bridge to the southern region was washed away and mobile and landline networks are down.

Haiti, with a population of 11 million, is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and has tens of thousands of people still living in tents after a powerful earthquake six years ago killed 200,000 people.

Infrastructure is, in general, poor and many people live in rudimentary shacks crowding the hillsides that are especially vulnerable to the high winds and lashing rains of a hurricane — as well as the landslides that often take place afterward.

The United Nations is calling Matthew “the largest humanitarian event” in Haiti since the earthquake and said “much of the population” has already been displaced, according to Mourad Wahba, the deputy special representative for Haiti.

He said that at least 10,000 people were in shelters, and the country was running short of clean water.

Images posted on social media Tuesday showed raging, muddy floodwaters nearly overflowing river banks and driving wind and rain that bent palm trees nearly in half. The winds sheared roofs from ramshackle houses, uprooted trees, washed out bridges and clogged rivers and roads with debris.

Everywhere people could be seen were wading through the streets where water levels in some places reached shoulder height.

In one dramatic video, a man shouted in English, “Pray for us,” as Matthew lashed the small port of Les Cayes on Haiti’s southwestern coast. A major concern in such low-lying areas is the persistent danger from flooding and mudslides, relief officials said.

“It’s much too early to know how bad things are but we do know there are a lot of houses that have been destroyed or damaged in the south,” Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, told the Associated Press.

Heavy rain is expected to continue pounding Haiti in the hurricane’s wake with up to 40 inches in some remote areas.

UNICEF has warned that more than 4 million children are risk in the country, especially from waterbourne disease because of the lack of clean water.

According to the U.S. State Department, USAID has deployed emergency response teams to Haiti and prepositioned relief supplies such as shelter kits and sanitation necessities, to help out in the aftermath.

The U.S. Navy has sent three ships, including an aircraft carrier and a hospital ship to the region as well.

Catholic Relief Services, a charity active in Haiti, reported flooding and toppled trees in Les Cayes, where it has an office.

Chris Bessey, the CRS country representative based in Port-au-Prince, said the storm blew part of the roof off the charity’s two-story building in Les Cayes and knocked out its generator. The river there has crested, the streets are flooded and the main road to southern Haiti has been cut because a bridge was washed out at Petit-Goave, he said by telephone from Port-au-Prince.

Haitian authorities called on the peacekeepers of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti to assist in the response to the hurricane, said Ariane Quentier, a spokeswoman for the mission. But with the storm still raging, there was little they could do.

Quentier said 80 percent of the schools in the hardest-hit areas have been turned into shelters and that authorities have been trying to get people to evacuate their homes and head to those sites.

“We’re seeing enormous amounts of flooding, enormous amounts of wind damage,” John Hasse, national director for the aid organization World Vision in Haiti, said. Before Matthew made landfall, staffers had been trying to persuade people to get to safe structures, he said.

“Yet right up until the storm hit, we still heard many people saying, ‘We’re waiting on God’ and not making preparations,” Hasse said. He said the charity has warehouses stocked with blankets, tarps, water cans and hygiene kits to assist nearly 100,000 people, but “we expect it to go well over a million to even millions of people affected by this.”

Relief officials said many people rejected pleas to evacuate, fearing that they would lose their meager belongings to looters. For some, who changed their minds as the powerful storm unleashed its fury, it was now too late to help them, the officials said.

In the vast Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince, 130 children were evacuated from an orphanage ahead of winds and rain that authorities feared could ravage the densely populated area of tin shanties, open sewers and canals.

As if the country did not have enough to worry about, a long-delayed presidential election is scheduled for Sunday and the government had no immediate plans to postpone it.</s>(CNN) A few months after the massive 2010 earthquake in Haiti, I stood on the terrace of my hotel and looked out onto the Champs de Mars plaza, a central square in Port-au-Prince that had become an encampment for people who'd lost their homes.

It was May and the skies looked ominous as a storm hurtled toward the Haitian capital. What would become of all the Haitians left homeless in the quake, I wondered. How would they make it through the rainy season?

That storm, of course, paled in comparison to the force of Hurricane Matthew, which pummeled Haiti on Tuesday with 145 mph winds and heavy rain.

The worst hit was the southern port city of Les Cayes, but all of Haiti's 10 million people were exposed to danger. Among those, some 60,000 people still live in the post-quake camps that journalists referred to as "makeshift." The International Organization for Migration estimates 45 such camps still exist in the Port-au-Prince area.

Somehow, they became permanent; they became "home" for those who had nowhere to go. Thousands more live in flimsy homes that can easily wash away.

I tried to imagine what that must feel like: to be huddled with babies and children under plastic sheeting or a patched-together roof with little between you and the ground in the fury of a Category 4 hurricane.

Matthew was another "catastrophe," the word Haitians used when they spoke of the earthquake.

It hardly seemed fair that Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, should be punished this way again.

In its 240 years of existence, Haitians have died because of dictatorships, violence, corruption, mismanagement and disease. And they have died in earthquakes, storms and floods. Two years before the 2010 quake, 800 people were dead and damages totaled $1 billion as three hurricanes and a tropical storm hit Haiti in a matter of four weeks.

And then came the 7.0 magnitude quake that killed as many as 200,000 people. Walking around Port-au-Prince in its aftermath, I saw one apocalyptic block after another. There was nothing left.

Haiti's geographic location in the Caribbean and on the Gonave microplate makes it vulnerable to natural disasters; it is considered the fifth most disaster-prone country in the world. But that doesn't fully explain why Hurricane Matthew may exact such a grave toll.

In many ways still reeling from the 2010 earthquake, Haiti simply lacks the resources to prepare for such destruction.

Some Haitians I spoke with then actually saw the quake as a new beginning. This was a chance to rebuild the country all shiny and new. And indeed, the world promised Haiti $13 billion to rebuild.

But the optimism faded as fast as it had risen and the reality is that there is little to show for the billions pledged.

Why? The answers are, of course, long and complicated. Journalist Jonathan Katz provided his take in a 2013 book, "The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster."

Katz says 93% of the money went to foreign aid agencies, including the United Nations. Granted, the Haitian government was too weak to handle massive recovery efforts just after the quake but in subsequent months, Katz argues, the money should have been channeled to Haitians who know best how to rebuild their own country. As it stands, little was done in the way of building local structures that would help Haiti respond to a future disaster, like Hurricane Matthew.

In 2016, 60% of Haitians still live in poverty; half do not know how to read or write or have access to health care. Consider that only one in four Haitians have use of a toilet.

On the first anniversary of the earthquake, I returned to Haiti and often on my walks down the streets of Port-au-Prince, I heard people taking God's name or chanting the Lord's Prayer. On Sundays, large crowds congregated before the carcass of the Cathedrale Notre Dame de L'Assomption, a magnificent church that took 30 years to build and only 35 seconds to come tumbling down.

Many of those people told me they'd lost their loved ones, their homes, their things. But they had their faith.

I can imagine that in the aftermath of the hurricane, Haitians will again struggle to see their future. The destruction will come into plain sight. More Haitians will die.

A year after the earthquake, the Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat wrote that "in Haiti, people's spirits never really die." I learned that to be true from spending time with Haitians. And it is what will carry them now.</s>A Calgary councillor was waiting anxiously for word from Haiti Tuseday as Hurricane Matthew blew through the country,

 

 Coun. Brian Pincott was in Haiti twice in 2014 through his work with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and remains in contact with some of the people he met there.

 

 “I’ve been in my newsfeed non-stop for the last 30 hours – this is the last thing that Haiti needs,” said Pincott.

 

 The storm hit Haiti's southwestern tip with 233 km/h winds Tuesday, tearing off roofs in the poor and largely rural area, uprooting trees and leaving rivers bloated and choked with debris. At least nine deaths were blamed on the storm.

 

 Pincott was there as a mentor to municipal governments in the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding municipalities.

 

 “Basically we were working with the municipal governments down there to try and help them be governments - put processes in place and understand how to deliver services,” he said.

 

 During his time there, he saw first hand the challenges Haitians face because of the country’s poverty, and as a result of the 2010 earthquake.

 

 “There are many, many challenges in Haiti,” said Pincott. Because of deforestation, you get flash floods that wash out bridges and infrastructure.”

 

 He said Port-au-Prince is hemmed in by mountains, and the poorest people live in slums which are practically below sea level and prone to flooding.

 

 To make matters worse, the country was about to hold a presidential election this coming Sunday.

 

 “It’s almost two years late – they’ve struggled to hold fair elections – and low and behold this happens just before the election,” said Pincott.

 

 Pincott said he’d be reaching out to his contacts there later in the day, once he was sure the hurricane had passed.</s>(CNN) A few months after the massive 2010 earthquake in Haiti, I stood on the terrace of my hotel and looked out onto the Champs de Mars plaza, a central square in Port-au-Prince that had become an encampment for people who'd lost their homes.

It was May and the skies looked ominous as a storm hurtled toward the Haitian capital. What would become of all the Haitians left homeless in the quake, I wondered. How would they make it through the rainy season?

That storm, of course, paled in comparison to the force of Hurricane Matthew, which pummeled Haiti on Tuesday with 145 mph winds and heavy rain.

The worst hit was the southern port city of Les Cayes, but all of Haiti's 10 million people were exposed to danger. Among those, some 60,000 people still live in the post-quake camps that journalists referred to as "makeshift." The International Organization for Migration estimates 45 such camps still exist in the Port-au-Prince area.

Somehow, they became permanent; they became "home" for those who had nowhere to go. Thousands more live in flimsy homes that can easily wash away.

I tried to imagine what that must feel like: to be huddled with babies and children under plastic sheeting or a patched-together roof with little between you and the ground in the fury of a Category 4 hurricane.

Matthew was another "catastrophe," the word Haitians used when they spoke of the earthquake.

It hardly seemed fair that Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, should be punished this way again.

In its 240 years of existence, Haitians have died because of dictatorships, violence, corruption, mismanagement and disease. And they have died in earthquakes, storms and floods. Two years before the 2010 quake, 800 people were dead and damages totaled $1 billion as three hurricanes and a tropical storm hit Haiti in a matter of four weeks.

And then came the 7.0 magnitude quake that killed as many as 200,000 people. Walking around Port-au-Prince in its aftermath, I saw one apocalyptic block after another. There was nothing left.

Haiti's geographic location in the Caribbean and on the Gonave microplate makes it vulnerable to natural disasters; it is considered the fifth most disaster-prone country in the world. But that doesn't fully explain why Hurricane Matthew may exact such a grave toll.

In many ways still reeling from the 2010 earthquake, Haiti simply lacks the resources to prepare for such destruction.

Some Haitians I spoke with then actually saw the quake as a new beginning. This was a chance to rebuild the country all shiny and new. And indeed, the world promised Haiti $13 billion to rebuild.

But the optimism faded as fast as it had risen and the reality is that there is little to show for the billions pledged.

Why? The answers are, of course, long and complicated. Journalist Jonathan Katz provided his take in a 2013 book, "The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster."

Katz says 93% of the money went to foreign aid agencies, including the United Nations. Granted, the Haitian government was too weak to handle massive recovery efforts just after the quake but in subsequent months, Katz argues, the money should have been channeled to Haitians who know best how to rebuild their own country. As it stands, little was done in the way of building local structures that would help Haiti respond to a future disaster, like Hurricane Matthew.

In 2016, 60% of Haitians still live in poverty; half do not know how to read or write or have access to health care. Consider that only one in four Haitians have use of a toilet.

On the first anniversary of the earthquake, I returned to Haiti and often on my walks down the streets of Port-au-Prince, I heard people taking God's name or chanting the Lord's Prayer. On Sundays, large crowds congregated before the carcass of the Cathedrale Notre Dame de L'Assomption, a magnificent church that took 30 years to build and only 35 seconds to come tumbling down.

Many of those people told me they'd lost their loved ones, their homes, their things. But they had their faith.

I can imagine that in the aftermath of the hurricane, Haitians will again struggle to see their future. The destruction will come into plain sight. More Haitians will die.

A year after the earthquake, the Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat wrote that "in Haiti, people's spirits never really die." I learned that to be true from spending time with Haitians. And it is what will carry them now.</s>Haiti, which is feeling the force of Hurricane Matthew, with winds of 145mph and 3ft of rain, is all too accustomed to natural hazards and disasters.



The Caribbean country is regularly battered by tropical storms and floods and has also been struck by powerful earthquakes.

During the hurricane season eight years ago, Haiti was hit by four storms – Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike – which killed more than 800 people and devastated nearly three-quarters of its agricultural land. It also suffered dire flooding in 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007. In 1963, Hurricane Flora killed 6,000 people in Haiti and Cuba.

In January 2010, a devastating earthquake flattened parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. It killed at least 90,000 people and displaced more than 1.5 million. In its wake there was a cholera epidemic, unwittingly introduced by UN peacekeepers, which has claimed about 10,000 lives.

Laurent Lamothe, who was Haiti’s prime minister between 2012 and 2014, described the earthquake as an Armageddon moment that “literally set us back 50 years”.

Despite the huge amount of aid money promised in the aftermath of the disaster, very little of it was channelled through Haitian organisations, leading to accusations that it was badly targeted and did little to help the country recover and prepare for future catastrophes.

It also remains dangerously exposed to environmental threats such as floods and mudslides, because of staggering levels of deforestation. Many people, especially in Port-au-Prince, live in shanty towns whose flimsy huts cling to steep and exposed hillsides.

Its vulnerability to disasters, however, and its ability to cope with them are down to far more than simple geography.



Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has suffered decades of political instability, corruption and violence, leaving its infrastructure severely compromised.



According to Dr Matthias Garschagen, the scientific director of the annual World Risk Report, the impact of hazards such as earthquakes and hurricanes depends on everything from planning laws to basic infrastructure.

“The disaster potential we see in Haiti in these very minutes and hours is not only driven by the strength of the hazard, which is very strong of course, but also by the real lack of coping capacity and the very high fragility and susceptibility within society,” he said.



Such fundamental provisions, added Garschagen, were only as good as the government institutions supporting them.

“This is where Haiti has its greatest weaknesses: weak institutions, to a certain extent very inefficient institutions, and a high level of corruption so that even the limited resources that are there are not as powerful as they could or should be.”

Earlier this year, the UN’s head of disaster planning said the world’s failure to prepare would have “inconceivably bad” consequences as climate change fuels a huge increase in catastrophic droughts and floods and the humanitarian crises that follow.



In 2015, earthquakes, floods, heatwaves and landslides left 22,773 people dead, affected 98.6 million others and caused $66.5bn (£47bn) of economic damage (pdf). The international community, however, spends less than 0.5% of the global aid budget on mitigating the risks posed by such hazards.</s>The cyclone killed at least 25 people on its path through Hispaniola, the Caribbean island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, but authorities are just beginning efforts to assess the full scale of the damage.

Matthew's 145 mile-per-hour (230 kph) winds uprooted trees, billboards and mobile phone towers as the storm's eye passed close to Les Cayes early on Tuesday on Haiti's picturesque southwestern coast, while the surging sea tossed fishing boats from the beach high on to land.

A mother and her two children, and another child, were swept to their deaths in a raging river a few miles from Les Cayes, in what meteorologists say it was the strongest storm to hit Haiti in more than half a century.

"Everybody was affected, there is nowhere to go," said Selio Dorval, 30, trying to fix the roof of his home with a thin sheet of wood, next to a boat lying in the road.

"I’m in the street now, my house is destroyed, I have kids, I have no house," said Dorval who spent the last two nights in a high school being used as a shelter from the storm.

Historians say Les Cayes was destroyed by hurricanes twice in the 18th century, but it bounced back to become an important port exporting coffee and vetiver, an ingredient in perfumes. It is a gateway to nearby Ile-a-Vache, a palm-fringed island Haiti's government wants to develop for international tourism.

Low-lying Ile-a-Vache was in the path of the storm and authorities have not yet been able to communicate with the island to assess the extent of the damage.

Most houses in Les Cayes were left roofless, with many completely inhabitable.

With the main road from capital Port-Au-Prince impassable after a swollen river destroyed a bridge and helicopters not taking off because of cloud cover and rain, outside aid has not begun to reach Les Cayes and other coast towns that took the brunt of Matthew.

Conditions were grim in the town's public Immaculate Conception Hospital, where patients were stranded in leaky wards and most doctors had not been seen since before the storm. In the maternity ward's theater stinking buckets of liquid waste hung off beds, apparently there for several days.

Joulentah held her 14-month-old son Jouvensly, who she brought in on Thursday to cure diarrhea and fever. A doctor had prescribed an IV drip, but there was nobody in the pediatrics ward to administer it.

“I don’t have money, I don’t know where else to go, he cried for food I have nothing to give him,” said Joulentah, who only gave her first name.</s>Are you affected by Hurricane Matthew? If it is safe for you to do so, WhatsApp us on *+44 7435 939 154* to share your photos, experiences and video. Please tag #CNNiReport in your message.

(CNN) Hurricane Matthew's strong winds pounded Cuba on Tuesday night even as the powerful storm took its last lashes at Haiti, where it downed trees, drenched the ground with feet of rain and flooded streets.

The damage was especially brutal in southern Haiti, where sustained winds of 130 mph continued to punish the impoverished island nation even as the eye of the storm crossed eastern Cuba.

The "extremely dangerous" storm has killed at least seven people, including four in Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic.

Officials feared a high death toll in Haiti.

"We've already seen deaths. People who were out at sea. There are people who are missing. They are people who didn't respect the alerts. They've lost their lives," Interim Haitian President Jocelerme Privert said at a news conference.

Heavy rain throughout the day caused Haitian waterways to swell.

"The river has overflowed all around us," church pastor Louis St. Germain said. "It's terrible ... a total disaster."

Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People wade through floodwaters with a boat in Nichols, South Carolina, on Monday, October 10. Hurricane Matthew caused flooding and damage in the Southeast -- from Florida to North Carolina -- after slamming Haiti and other countries in the Caribbean. Hide Caption 1 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Workers repair downed power lines in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 10. Hide Caption 2 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Rescue teams maneuver through floodwaters in Lumberton, North Carolina, on October 10. President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in North Carolina and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts. Hide Caption 3 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Floodwaters inundate a home in Lumberton on October 10. Hide Caption 4 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Floodwaters surround a house in Nichols, South Carolina, on October 10. Hide Caption 5 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley checks flooding near Nichols on October 10. Hide Caption 6 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Floodwaters surround power lines near Nichols on October 10. Hide Caption 7 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Without power in the hurricane's aftermath, Missy Zinc shines a light so her husband, Shawn, can prepare steaks to grill in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on Sunday, October 9. Hide Caption 8 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Anthony Writebol, left, and his cousin Melissa Hill paddle past a stranded tractor-trailer in Lumberton on October 9. Hide Caption 9 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A man clings to a road sign after trying to swim out to help a stranded truck driver in Hope Mills, North Carolina, on October 9. Both were rescued. Hide Caption 10 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People stop and take pictures of Highway 58, which was flooded in Nashville, North Carolina, on October 9. Hide Caption 11 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Boats are pushed up among twisted docks in Hilton Head on October 9. Hide Caption 12 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Rescue workers help several dogs that were trapped in homes in Pinetops, North Carolina, on October 9. Hide Caption 13 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A section of Wayne Memorial Drive was washed out in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Hide Caption 14 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction John Tweedy wades into the swift-moving floodwaters surrounding his business in McClellanville, South Carolina, on Saturday, October 8. Hide Caption 15 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman who gave her name only as Valerie walks along flooded President Street after leaving her homeless camp in Savannah, Georgia, on October 8. Hide Caption 16 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Volunteers clear debris from from a pool at a condominium complex in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, on October 8. Hide Caption 17 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A police officer steps through the remnants of a home leveled by Hurricane Matthew in the tiny beach community of Edisto Beach, South Carolina, on October 8. Hide Caption 18 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A downed tree and power lines block a road on Georgia's St. Simons Island on October 8. Hide Caption 19 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman fights the wind in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, on October 8. Hide Caption 20 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Parts of Highway A1A in Flagler Beach, Florida, were washed away by Hurricane Matthew on Friday, October 7. Hide Caption 21 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Water flows over a seawall and fills the streets of St. Augustine, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 22 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Barbara Hearst tapes her storm shutters as Hurricane Matthew nears Charleston, South Carolina, on October 7. Hide Caption 23 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Adam and Alec Selent watch waves crash over a retainer wall at the Ocean Club condominiums in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, on October 7. Hide Caption 24 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A damaged boat sits partially submerged on the intercoastal waterway in Melbourne, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 25 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A police officer helps persuade a woman to board a bus and evacuate Savannah, Georgia, on October 7. Hide Caption 26 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Preston Payne tries to hold his umbrella on Georgia's Tybee Island on October 7. Hide Caption 27 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Heavy waves pound boat docks in Cocoa Beach, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 28 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A women helps a dog walk through floodwaters in Port Orange, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 29 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Damage in Cocoa Beach. Hide Caption 30 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Waves crash against a bridge in St. Augustine, Florida. Hide Caption 31 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A car drives past a downed tree as the hurricane moves through Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 32 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A billboard canvas flaps in the wind after Hurricane Matthew passed North Palm Beach, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 33 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman inspects her damaged car under a tree in Fort Pierce, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 34 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A space shuttle model stands near some downed trees after Hurricane Matthew passed by Cocoa Beach. Hide Caption 35 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman uses her phone under a battery-operated lantern at a hotel in Titusville, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 36 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Palm trees on Cocoa Beach sway in the wind on October 7. Hide Caption 37 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Firefighters respond to a pre-dawn house fire in Satellite Beach, Florida, that was possibly caused by a downed power line on October 7. Hide Caption 38 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Heavy rain billows in front of Exploration Tower in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 39 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People stand on a beach in Broward County, Florida, as the storm approached the coast on Thursday, October 6. Hide Caption 40 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A police officer walks along the beach in Singer Island, Florida, on October 6. Hide Caption 41 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Kevin Forde and John Haughey put plywood on a Miami Beach window on October 6. Hide Caption 42 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Hurricane Matthew moves through Paradise Island in Nassau, Bahamas, on October 6. Capt. Stephen Russell, the head of the Bahamas National Emergency Management Authority, said there were many downed trees and power lines but no reports of casualties. Hide Caption 43 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People leave Disney's Magic Kingdom theme park, in heavy rain, after it closed in Orlando, Florida in preparation for the landfall of Hurricane Matthew, on October 6. Hide Caption 44 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A man rakes up debris from a storm drain as he begins cleanup near a damaged gas station in Nassau on October 6. Hide Caption 45 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Residents repair their homes in Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 6. The damage from Hurricane Matthew was especially brutal in southern Haiti, where sustained winds of 130 mph punished the country. Hide Caption 46 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Girls hold hands as they help each other wade through a flooded street in Les Cayes on October 6. Hide Caption 47 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Two days after the storm, authorities and aid workers in Haiti still lacked a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years. Hide Caption 48 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A supermarket shelf is nearly cleared out in Titusville, Florida, on Wednesday, October 5. Hide Caption 49 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Bumper-to-bumper traffic lines Interstate 26 in Columbia, South Carolina, as people drive west on October 5. Hide Caption 50 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Workers start removing umbrellas and the colorful rocking chairs that line the Cocoa Beach Pier in Cocoa Beach, Florida, on October 5. Hide Caption 51 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People carry a coffin and try to cross the La Digue river on October 5 after a bridge collapsed in Petit-Goave, Haiti. Hide Caption 52 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People cross the La Digue river on October 5. Hide Caption 53 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Evacuees return to their homes in the Carbonera community of Guantanamo, Cuba, on October 5. Hide Caption 54 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People embrace at their damaged home in Baracoa, Cuba. The hurricane rolled across the sparsely populated tip of Cuba, destroying dozens of homes in the country's easternmost city and leaving hundreds of others damaged. Hide Caption 55 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman cries amid the rubble of her home in Baracoa. Hide Caption 56 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Bus drivers in North Charleston, South Carolina, wait for word to start evacuations. Hide Caption 57 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction The high winds of Hurricane Matthew roar over Baracoa on Tuesday, October 4. Hide Caption 58 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Beth Johnson fills up her car at a gas station in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, on October 4. Hide Caption 59 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction The mother of two girls who died in the storm is comforted near her home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on October 4. The girls were killed when a landslide caused by flooding breached the walls of their house. Hide Caption 60 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker clears a sewer on a flooded street in Santo Domingo. Hide Caption 61 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Anita Baranyi feeds her baby while keeping an eye on the generator she intends to purchase from a home-improvement store in Oakland Park, Florida, on October 4. Hide Caption 62 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People wade through the flooded streets of Cite Soleil in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hurricane Matthew is the strongest storm to hit Haiti since 1964 and the first hurricane to make landfall in the country since the devastating earthquake in 2010. Hide Caption 63 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People observe the flooding of a river near Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 64 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Children swim in a flooded neighborhood of Santo Domingo on October 4. Hide Caption 65 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A truck used as public transportation drives through flooded streets in Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 66 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Hurricane winds blow against palm trees in Port-au-Prince. Hide Caption 67 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A food vendor lays out goods for sale during a light rain in Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 68 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Haitian civil protection workers arrive to evacuate the Tabarre region of Haiti on October 3. Hide Caption 69 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Officials urge residents to evacuate their homes in the Grise River area of Tabarre on October 3. Hide Caption 70 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Clouds loom over the hills of the Petionville suburb of Port-au-Prince on October 3. Hide Caption 71 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Families seek shelter from Hurricane Matthew at a university facility in Guantanamo, Cuba. Hide Caption 72 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People near Kingston, Jamaica, take a photo in front of the rough surf produced by Hurricane Matthew on October 3. Hide Caption 73 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A backhoe removes garbage to clear a canal in Port-au-Prince on October 3. Hide Caption 74 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Nice Simon, the mayor of Tabarre, Haiti, holds a baby as she helps evacuate the area along a river. Hide Caption 75 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People stock up on food at a supermarket in Port-au-Prince on Sunday, October 2. Hide Caption 76 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker dismantles a traffic light in Santiago before Hurricane Matthew struck Cuba. Hide Caption 77 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Motorists drive through heavy rains in Kingston, Jamaica, on October 2. Hide Caption 78 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Residents of Cuba's Holguin Province line up to buy gas on October 2. Hide Caption 79 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker nails a board to a storefront window in Kingston on Saturday, October 1. Hide Caption 80 of 80

St. Germain, who spoke to CNN on the phone from Les Cayes, Haiti, said the storm sheared a wall off his house and tore roofs off many buildings in the area.

And in a significant setback for emergency responders and aid relief efforts, the bridge that connected Port-au-Prince with southern Haiti collapsed.

There are reports of communications towers being affected by downed trees and officials are worried it will hamper the emergency response.

Matthew was moving across Cuba on its way to the Bahamas.

The Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Les Anglais, Haiti, around 7 a.m. ET, according to the National Hurricane Center

Up to 40 inches of rain could be dumped Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak.

Cameras outside the space station captured dramatic views of major Hurricane Matthew as the orbital complex flew 250 miles above (speed x4). pic.twitter.com/nfAQuw2OQC — Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 3, 2016

River levels rise

Les Cayes Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortuné said Tuesday morning the storm was slamming into his city. He posted videos on social media that showed wind whipping through trees as heavy rains pelted people on the streets.

The United Nations mission in Haiti shared a photo of people wading through water in a flooded street there.

#MatthewHaiti Current situation les Cayes south of Haiti pic.twitter.com/bLDCAeNOUH — MINUSTAH (@MINUSTAH) October 4, 2016

Witnesses also reported streets flooding in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Leogane was also hit hard.

HAiti is going to need a lot of help after this storm #Leogane #haiti #flooding #hurricanematthew #humanitariancrisis @weatherchannel @washingtonpost @nytimes A video posted by Foundation Marie (@foundationmariehaiti) on Oct 4, 2016 at 1:02pm PDT

Along the US East Coast governors in four states declared states of emergency and two told residents to prepare for possible evacuations. Florida Gov. Rick Scott was particularly blunt, telling residents to prepare for the state quite possibly taking a direct hit.

Death toll rising

Seven people have died in incidents connected to Hurricane Matthew within the past week, authorities said.

Four people in the Dominican Republic died, the government announced, without providing any details about how the victims passed away.

In Haiti, Guillaume Albert Moleon, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said one fisherman died on Sunday. A second fisherman is presumed dead, but the body has not been recovered.

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a teenager died in a landslide as he was cleaning a drain behind his house, according to Michelle Forbes, deputy director for the National Emergency Management Office. The boy died Wednesday after storms from Matthew passed.

The hurricane could cause further devastation for Haiti as much of the country's infrastructure remains weak after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people.

More than 300,000 people are in shelters across the country, the United Nations said.

Watches and warning Hurricane warning is in effect for: • Haiti • Cuban provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas • Southeastern Bahamas, including the Inaguas, Mayaguana, Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay and Ragged Island • Central Bahamas, including Long Island, Exuma, Rum Cay, San Salvador and Cat Island • Northwestern Bahamas, including the Abacos, Andros Island, Berry Islands, Bimini, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island and New Providence • North of Golden Beach to Sebastian Inlet • Lake Okeechobee Hurricane watch is in effect for: • Cuban province of Camaguey • US state of Florida, from north of Sebastian Inlet to the Flagler/Volusia county line Source: National Hurricane Center

After the storm clears Haiti, residents could face risks from another threat: standing water.

"That means a potential spike in cholera cases," said John Hasse, the humanitarian aid agency World Vision's national director in Haiti. "Other mosquito-borne diseases that have been more or less controlled are going to rear their heads."

Haiti is still recovering from a post-quake cholera outbreak that killed 10,000 people.

Collision course for Cuba

Forecasters said Matthew could dump up to 20 inches of rain in Cuba.

The United States, taking no chances, airlifted 700 family members of military personnel stationed at Guantanamo Bay to Florida. The 61 detainees held by the United States as alleged enemy combatants will not be evacuated, officials added.

After skirting Cuba, Matthew is expected to hit the Bahamas and turn toward the United States. It should lose some strength, but still have 115 mph winds.</s>The steady march of Hurricane Matthew has left more than 1 million customers in Florida without power.State officials released updated totals on Friday that showed that the powerful Category 3 storm had knocked out electricity over a wide stretch of the state's eastern coast. Most of the customers in Flagler and Volusia County - the home to Daytona Beach - were without power. Other hard hit areas include Brevard and Indian River counties.The storm was strong enough to also cause outages in Central Florida. More than 100,000 who live in the Orlando area are without electricity.Hurricane Matthew scraped Florida's Atlantic coast early Friday, toppling trees onto homes but sparing some of the most heavily populated stretches of shoreline the catastrophic blow many had feared.The St. Lucie County, Florida, sheriff confirmed a person died overnight when emergency officials could not get to the person after suspending operations because of the storm.Authorities warned that the danger was far from over, with hundreds of miles of coastline in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina still under threat of torrential rain and dangerous storm surge as the hurricane pushed north."Remember, it could be the worst of it is yet to come," Fla. Gov. Rick Scott said in the morning.Several more communities on the South Carolina coast are imposing curfews as the winds and rains of Hurricane Matthew approach the state. The worse of the storm is expected to move in overnight and Matthew is expected to be just off Charleston about daybreak as a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds.Charleston, North Charleston, and Mount Pleasant are all imposing curfews from midnight Friday through 6 a.m. on Saturday. Officials say they don't want people driving or walking around while law officers and emergency workers have to deal with issues related to the storm.In Beaufort County a curfew will be in effect from dusk Friday through dawn on Saturday.Matthew was downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane overnight, and its storm center hung just offshore as it moved up the Florida coastline, sparing communities its full 120 mph winds. Still, it got close enough to knock down trees and power lines, and a 107 mph gust was recorded at Cape Canaveral.As the storm closed in, an estimated 2 million people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were warned to move inland to escape the fury of the most powerful hurricane to menace the U.S. Atlantic coast in more than a decade.Matthew left more than 280 people dead in its wake across the Caribbean.As it moved on to Florida, it largely skirted the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach areas of over 7 million people and hugged closer to the coast farther north, menacing such communities as Vero Beach, Daytona Beach, Cape Canaveral and Jacksonville.Some people who refused to evacuate were stranded and called for help early Friday but were told to stay put until conditions improved enough for paramedics and firefighters to get to them, said emergency operations spokesman David Waters in Brevard County, the home of Cape Canaveral."A family called in that the roof just flew off their home on Merritt Island," Waters said.It was a scene officials hoped to avoid in other cities as the storm pushed north.In Jacksonville, where 500,000 people were told to evacuate, Mayor Lenny Curry warned that authorities would not be able to help them during the worst of the storm."You need to leave. If you do not leave you will be on your own," Curry said.Despite warnings, many people along the Florida coast decided to take their chances.In Cape Canaveral, John Long rode out the storm in his 32-foot camper in a park a half-mile from the beach.He lost power shortly before dawn but quickly fired up his generator. Small tree branches battered the vehicle but the large ones on the park's giant oak trees didn't fall."It was kind of loud and kind of shaky but nothing that caused too much concern," he said.Robert Tyler had feared a storm surge would flood his street, which is only two blocks from the Cape Canaveral beach. But he and his wife, Georgette, felt fortunate Friday morning when they looked out the front door of their one-story cinderblock apartment and there wasn't much water.Tree branches littered the road, and he could hear transformers exploding overnight, but his home didn't appear to have damage on first inspection, and his vehicles were unharmed."Overnight, it was scary as heck. That description of a freight train is pretty accurate. At one point it felt like the windows were going to blow even though they all were covered with plywood," he said.Florida's governor called it a "blessing" that so far Florida was avoiding a direct hit as the storm sliced northward.Still, forecasters said it could dump up to 15 inches of rain in some spots and cause a storm surge of 9 feet or more. They said the major threat to the Southeast would not be the winds - which newer buildings can withstand - but the massive surge of seawater that could wash over coastal communities.The Fort Lauderdale and Orlando airports shut down. Airlines canceled more than 3,000 flights Thursday and Friday, many of them in or out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Amtrak suspended train service between Miami and New York, and cruise lines rerouted ships to avoid the storm, which in some cases will mean more days at sea.Orlando's world-famous theme parks - Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld - all closed.Thousands of people hunkered down in schools converted to shelters, and inland hotels in places such as Charlotte, North Carolina, reported brisk business.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.</s>Hurricane Matthew has left at least 23 people dead in Haiti, a toll likely to climb as authorities re-establish contact with the hardest-hit areas where the damage is "catastrophic," officials said.

The Caribbean's worst storm in nearly a decade, Matthew slammed into Haiti, the Americas' poorest nation, with heavy rains and devastating winds, triggering severe flooding and mud slides.

"The situation in the main cities we flew over was catastrophic," Haiti's interim president Jocelerme Privert said, after he surveyed damage to the country's south on Wednesday in a US Coast Guard plane.

"Jeremie, Les Cayes, Port-Salut, Petite-Riviere de Nippes, Dame Marie, among others, require all intervention without delay," he said, according to a Wednesday statement.

In addition to the 23 killed, three people remain missing, civil protection spokesman Edgar Celestin said, warning that the toll did not include the department of Grande Anse, which was in the eye of the storm and has been cut off from communication.

Authorities were "briefly able to contact Jeremie (the department capital), but we don't have information from other communities," Celestin said.

"We're making every effort to care for these people. The priority is drinking water and food," Celestin said.

Matthew's overall death toll now stands at 27, including four people killed in the Dominican Republic.

Interior ministry spokesman Guillaume Albert Moleon told AFP that officials "can already see the situation seems very concerning," adding that 25 injuries had been reported.

Flooding brought on by Matthew has sparked a resurgence of cholera, with eight cases already reported.

Torrential rains have left around 2,000 homes flooded and damaged 10 schools, according to the latest partial assessment by authorities.

Both the death and damage tolls are likely to rise as rescue teams reach communities that have been cut off for the last 24 hours.

Emergency services have been hampered by the collapse of a bridge, which closed off access to the only road linking Port-au-Prince to the peninsula that makes up southern Haiti.
A bridge in Haiti connecting Port-au-Prince with southern Haiti collapses. The storm has killed at least nine people in the Caribbean.