Florida urged or ordered about 1.5 million to leave the coast, said Jackie Schutz, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Scott said the state, its skies already darkening from the deadly storm’s outer bands of rain, could be facing its “biggest evacuation ever.”

The hurricane picked up steam as it closed in, growing from a Category 3 to a Category 4 storm by late morning. The National Hurricane Center called Matthew, which wreaked havoc through Cuba and Haiti, extremely dangerous. 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. Hurricane Matthew packed gusts of 70 miles per hour (115 kph) and heavy downpours across coastal communities in Florida as the storm’s eye moved parallel to and just offshore of Florida’s east coast near Cape Canaveral, home to the nation’s chief space launch site, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Few storms with winds as powerful as Matthew’s have struck Florida, and the NHC warned of “potentially disastrous impacts.” The U.S. National Weather Service said the storm could be the most powerful to strike northeast Florida in 118 years. 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. “We’ve had some close calls, but as far as I know it’s the first time we’ve had the threat of a direct hit,” NASA spokesman George Diller said by email from the hurricane bunker.
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.