ALERT!: Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew was a the mayor cyclone of the 2016 year, that hit first Haiti on September 27th., killing 540 people. Then this Category 5th cyclone went to Cuba and the Bahamas islands, arriving to
the eastern coast of US on October 5th.

The states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina declared the emergency as soon as the first waves reached St. Augustine and Palm Coast causing floods of 2.5 feet above the ground level.

Plenty of trees were cracked by the strong winds, several buildings were damaged, and floods were unavoidable, the water raised and carried out cars, rubbish and debris by the cost area.

The category of this cyclone increased as it moved forward. It started in the eastern Caribbean and quickly intensified reaching its highest severity between the end of September and early October, becoming the first Category 5th hurricane of the Atlantic, with a strength of 160 mph winds, that took the lives of around 600 people.

The resident of the areas in risk were informed about the potential danger about a week before, most of them took the warnings seriously. In many areas cars got in line for fuel while neighbours looked forward to providing their families food and hardware supplies to board up their houses. In South Carolina, highways were reversed so vehicles could head west away from the storm. In Orlando, Disney parks were closed.

When the disaster reached the cities people couldn’t get out of their houses, the light posts and gensets short-circuits increased fire risk and about 22.000 persons had to be rescued and taken to shelters. The hurricane left a great number of homeless people, the water had ruined the houses, it is estimated that the rainfall in 24hs was equivalent to 3 months of rain felt in US. Due to this fact and the strong winds more than 4.000 flights were cancelled.

On October 10th the cyclone changed its direction to the East returning to the sea and the emergency was over. If it hadn’t, the US would have probably suffered a catastrophe.