Streets abandoned - BBC's Laura Bicker reports from Jacksonville, Floridapublished at 04:10 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Florida feels Hurricane Matthew approach
Summary
More than 800 people have been killed in Haiti and four in the Dominican Republic
Matthew is now a Category Two hurricane, as the eye of the storm stays just off Florida coast
Four people have been killed in Florida and more than a million left without power
Flooding could be severe in coastal areas of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina
North Carolina could also be affected as the storm moves north in days ahead
Streets abandoned - BBC's Laura Bicker reports from Jacksonville, Floridapublished at 04:10 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Media caption, Hurricane Nicole grows in strengthpublished at 03:49 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Hurricane Nicole, which has been trailing its stronger cousin Matthew in the Atlantic Ocean, has been upgraded to a Category Two Hurricane.
According to the National Hurricane Center, external, this is the first time since 10 September 1964 "that two Category 2 (or stronger) hurricanes have occurred simultaneously in the Atlantic basin west of 65W."
Nicole's maximum sustained wind speeds are currently reaching 105 mph.
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End of X postAnd a Bahamas updatepublished at 03:36 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of X post 3If you're just joining us, here's a summary...published at 03:34 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Hurricane Matthew has yet to make landfall in the United States, but damage has already been extensive in parts of the Caribbean. The Category 4 storm still remains a threat to millions of people.
- Death toll in Haiti has increased to 283 people, and expected to rise further
- Storm passing further east of US seaboard than originally forecast, much to relief of south Florida
- Wind speeds averaging 130mph (210km/h) and increasing
- At 21:30 local (02:30 GMT), eye of the storm was over Grand Bahama Island
- That's about 70 miles (110 km) east of West Palm Beach, Florida
- It's moving northwest at 13 mph (20 kph)
- The BBC has teams in Haiti and Florida
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Image source, ReutersIs the US government lying about Hurricane Matthew?published at 03:03 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Conservative media mogul Matt Drudge has taken to Twitter to question whether Hurricane Matthew is a government conspiracy to make "an exaggerated point on climate" change.
The reaction has ranged from eyebrows raised to outright hostility.
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End of X post 5'It's dangerous'
Drudge’s conspiracy-mongering is a dangerous game. More than 1.5 million people live in the evacuation zone for Matthew. It’s already difficult to get people to take evacuation warnings seriously
What is a Category 4 storm?published at 02:50 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
A category 4 storm means winds have reached 130-156 mph (209-251 km/h) and there will be damage to well-built homes.
A sigh of relief in South Floridapublished at 02:33 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Parts of South Florida are breathing a sigh of relief as the hurricane appears to have passed them by.
Experts say the weather system is further east than forecast. In Broward County, which has the city of Fort Lauderdale, Matthew has been downgraded to a tropical storm.
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End of X post 2Measuring a disaster with wafflespublished at 02:27 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Waffle House in Alabama
The Federal Emergency Management Agency really does measure disasters based on waffles served, according to the agency's administrator Craig Fugate.
“If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work,” he quipped somewhat sarcastically in the early days of the Obama administration.
Because the Waffle House chain is a 24-hour restaurant, their closure can really mean that the community has been affected by a natural disaster. There is even a colour code to determine the communities most in need.
Green means the Waffle House is open and serving. Yellow means they only serve a limited menu, often due to power outage. Red means that the location is closed, and as the Miami Herald writes, "life as we once knew it has been reduced to chaos and entropy".
What's it like to fly in a hurricane?published at 02:00 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of X post 3BBC reporters in Florida and Haitipublished at 01:47 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of X post 2And where was it earlier?published at 01:33 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of X post 2Where is it now?published at 01:29 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of X post 2Florida's Space Coast prepares for possible hitpublished at 01:17 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Image source, EPAImage caption, This photo from 11 April 2016 shows the rocket's return from the International Space Station
A spokesman for SpaceX, the private space travel company, has told the BBC that they are working closely with Nasa authorities to prepare for the possibility that the hurricane will make landfall near Cape Canaveral.
"We’re closely monitoring the weather conditions and working with our partners at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to safeguard facilities and personnel in the potentially affected areas."
Their one drone ship is currently riding out the storm at Port Canaveral, says the spokesman.
The platform, which is about the size of a football pitch, is named Of Course, I Still Love You in reference to one of the ships in the science fiction novel The Player of Games by Scottish writer Iain M Banks.
In April 2016, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully returned from the International Space Station and landed on the floating platform (pictured above).
Image source, EPAA quick summary - in videopublished at 01:08 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
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End of youtube videoMatthew's 2,000-mile journey continuespublished at 00:55 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Some interesting stats from The Weather Channel
- storm has travelled nearly 2,000 miles so far
- diameter is roughly the width of the state of Pennsylvania
- mandatory evacuations spread over 500 miles of Florida coast
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End of X post'It's a monster storm'published at 00:40 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
Florida Governor Rick Scott has been holding a news conference with the latest updates, and he warned that this weather system poses an unprecedented threat to the state.
“This storm is a monster. Again, protecting life is our number one priority.”
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End of X post 3Death toll in Haiti leaps to 264published at 00:26 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
BreakingThe death toll in Haiti as a result of Hurricane Matthew has soared to 264, the government announced.
Businesses get ready for Matthewpublished at 00:01 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
The sight of people boarding up their properties was commonplace on Thursday up and down Florida's east coast.
Media caption, Businesses in Melbourne, Florida, batten down the hatches
Video of damage in Bahamaspublished at 00:00 British Summer Time 7 October 2016
This video was filmed at a resort in the east of New Providence, the island on which the Bahamian capital Nassau sits.
It shows significant damage to trees around the resort.
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End of instagram postCuba largely sparedpublished at 23:44 British Summer Time 6 October 2016
Will Grant
BBC News, Havana
Image source, EPAGiven the scale of the destruction in Haiti, Cubans have largely been thankful that they avoided the worst of Hurricane Matthew. Two days after the storm clipped the eastern tip of the island there are still no reports of fatalities. But Cuba's most easterly town, Baracoa, has suffered significant damage with houses having roofs ripped off and others destroyed completely.
A number of routes into Baracoa, including from Guantanamo, are still impassable after storm surges left debris and large rocks on the road. Communication and power links are down and electricity is still out for much of the affected area.
Support has begun to arrive from neighbouring communities and the government response in the form of the army and brigades of emergency workers has been comparatively swift although hindered by the conditions.
But, with many in eastern towns like Santiago heeding the order to evacuate early, there is a sense that the situation could have been far worse.