HURRICANE MATTHEW DESTROYS HAITI ( jamaica - bahamas - florida ) 2016 storm

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HURRICANE MATTHEW DESTROYS HAITI ( jamaica - bahamas - florida ) 2016 storm But officials fear the death toll could rise, especially in and around the southern town of Les Cayes, which absorbed the first blow from Matthew and where hundreds were hunkering down in homes without electricity and roofs. The storm was a staggering blow to the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and officials feared Haiti would be forced to contend with yet another devastating humanitarian disaster. Related: Hurricane Matthew: Relief Groups Mobilize for Haiti After 'Catastrophic' Damage Kevin Roth, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, warned that Matthew could swamp Haiti's low-lying areas with up to 20 inches of rain and dump as much as 40 inches in the mountains after it made landfall just after 7 a.m. (8 a.m. ET). Photos: Hurricane Matthew Lashes Haiti, Dominican Republic Government officials and aid workers had set up a number of shelters in the major cities and pleaded with residents to low-lying areas to use them, Chris Bessey, country representative at Catholic Relief Services in Port-au-Prince, told NBC News. But many, more fearful of looters than the storm, refused to leave their properties. In Haiti, where Matthew made landfall about 12 hours earlier, it was still early to accurately assess the damage, but civil defense officials said many homes had been destroyed or damaged in the south. A key bridge collapsed in the town of Petit-Goâve on the highway that links Haiti's hardest-hit southwestern peninsula region to the capital, Port-au-Prince. Several people were reportedly "swept away." So far, Haiti's civil protection agency has reported just two deaths, one of them a fisherman who drowned in rough water churned up by the storm. Six other deaths have also been blamed on Matthew: One man died in Colombia, four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, and a teenager was killed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as the storm moved through the Caribbean.Hurricane Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic tropical storm in almost a decade, reached Cuba on Tuesday night after it flooded streets, flattened homes and left a trail of destruction in Haiti. The eye of Matthew, a powerful category 4 storm with sustained winds of 140 mph, began making landfall near the eastern tip of Cuba at about 8 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center said. Matthew "is impacting eastern Cuba," said Kait Parker, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "It did not weaken even with its interaction with Hispaniola, so we're not expecting a lot of weakening with Cuba, either." Matthew hit the island almost 53 years to the day after Hurricane Flora killed 2,000 Cubans on Oct. 3, 1953. In advance of the storm, the United States evacuated 700 civilians from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which lost power shortly before noon ET on Tuesday. Three U.S. Navy ships were headed toward the Caribbean to help with relief efforts, officials said.Hurricane Matthew Arrives in Cuba After Slamming Haiti haiti jamaica bahamas