This is a live stream from a camera on the Florida coastline as Hurricane Matthew bears down on Florida with force of historic proportions. Indeed, the warnings coming from the National Weather Service and the Weather Channel have been dire. Even Florida Governor Rick Scott has warned residents to head away from the coast, because staying will result in needless deaths.
Forecast models currently put Florida’s Palm Beach County at the heaviest point of impact for the impending storm. If Matthew makes landfall, it will be the first hurricane to directly hit the state since Hurricane Wilma in October 2005.
"If a direct landfall occurs, this will be unlike any hurricane in the modern era," said the National Weather Service's Jacksonville office in a forecast discussion.
Speaking at a press conference Thursday morning, Scott said, "We're planning for the worst, hoping for the best, but we're not going to take a chance."
"This is going to kill people," Scott said of Hurricane Matthew at the press conference, in which he, once again, sounded the alarm for residents to evacuate. In the wake of what he and the National Weather Service called a "life-threatening storm," Scott urged residents to have at least a three-day supply of food, water, and medicine. "Charge your phone," he added.
"Do not surf," Scott said. "Do not go on the beach. This will kill you." Scott said Floridians on Atlantic coast should expect to lose power, "possibly for a long period of time."
"We don't know exactly where this storm's going," Scott said. "Don't trust this track."
The National Weather Service said that the winds from this hurricane could well exceed those of the three large storms that pummeled the state in 2004. Waves from the storm could reach up to 18 feet as well, and residents should expect severe coastal surging.
Daily Kos associate editor Armando is with his elderly parents in North Palm Beach, because they refused to evacuate.
We wish them all the best, but it's looking grim for Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia right now. Haiti has been devastated, as you'll see in the video at the top. We don't know about the Bahamas yet.
With all of this empirical data about a storm which is the most dangerous to hit Florida since these things were first measured, this is what Matt Drudge just tweeted out:
https://twitter.com/DRUDGE/status/784121449606852608
If I could, I'd yell at him for this. This is how they get people killed and for what? To serve their climate-denying masters? What is the matter with people?
Oh wait. There's more:
