Matthew is strengthening near the northwestern Bahamas with maximum sustained winds at 125 miles (200 kilometers) an hour and its eye is expected to move “very close” to the east coast of the Florida peninsula on Thursday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 5 a.m. New York time. The Category 3 storm closed the Buckeye oil terminal in Freeport, Bahamas, and could disrupt petroleum shipments along the East Coast.
“Matthew is likely to produce devastating impacts from storm surge, extreme winds, and heavy rains in the central and northwestern Bahamas today,” the latest advisory said, adding that it could have similar effects along portions of the east coast of Florida on Thursday evening.
The National Weather Service warned that winds, heavy rain and a storm surge could kill, wash out roads, cut communication links and cause outages lasting weeks. Evacuations could push storm damage to $10 billion to $15 billion, mainly in losses related to economic disruption, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research in Savannah, Georgia. Jonathan Adams and Jeffrey Flynn, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, projected losses to be closer to $5 billion, with Florida bearing the brunt. – READ MORE