Hurricane Matthew unleashed its final assault on the south-eastern US on Saturday, inundating coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas with a powerful storm surge and flooding vulnerable areas further inland. Hurricane Matthew: Haiti death toll nears 900 as Charleston floods - live Read more“It’s not just about the beaches, it’s inland where we can have loss of life,” Pat McCrory, the North Carolina governor, said during a Saturday morning briefing at which he spoke of widespread “treacherous conditions”. Some of the strongest overnight winds came on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, which recorded gusts of close to 90mph. In Florida, more than 1 million customers were still without power on Saturday, and Governor Nikki Haley said another 437,000 people had lost electricity in South Carolina. Haley said it would be unsafe for many of the more than 300,000 evacuees to return to their homes in coastal areas of South Carolina before Monday at the earliest.

Source: The Guardian October 08, 2016 16:18 UTC