http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/hurricane-matthew-georgia-south-carolina.html 2016-10-08 21:03:35 Hurricane Matthew Hits Georgia and South Carolina By Saturday morning, the storm’s winds were barely strong enough to qualify it as a hurricane, but flooding was still a problem. === CHARLESTON, S.C. — After battering North Florida, Hurricane Matthew brought flooding, blackouts, and road closures to coastal Georgia and South Carolina on Saturday, cutting off many communities even as it weakened and pushed northward. But the hurricane’s eye remained offshore for most of its course, sparing the Atlantic coast the kind of direct strike that devastated Haiti earlier in the week, where the storm hit as a powerful Category 4 hurricane and killed hundreds of people. The storm grew steadily weaker on Saturday. By 10 a.m., the National Weather Service said its top sustained wind was 75 miles per hour, barely strong enough to qualify it as a hurricane — but still capable of bringing heavy rain and flooding as it ripped through the Carolinas. The storm made landfall Saturday morning near McClellanville, S.C., about 30 miles northeast of Charleston, as a Category 1 hurricane. In the elegant heart of this city of pastel buildings, floodwaters breached the sea wall along East Battery Street. They turned Market Street and East Bay Street into canals, and poured into the city market, reaching well up the legs of the tables inside. Charleston was fortunate in that the surge arrived as the tide was headed out. Even so, it was the strongest storm to hit the area since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, state officials said. Water rose higher along the barrier islands south of here, where the surge peaked close to high tide. On sparsely populated Tybee Island, Ga., near Savannah, the ocean rose 12.5 feet, breaking the record set in Hurricane David in 1979, the Chatham County Emergency Management Agency said. The island recorded gusts up to 94 m.p.h. The storm dropped nine inches or more of rain across the low-lying areas of Georgia and South Carolina — Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah recorded almost 17 inches — and flash flood warnings were in effect throughout the region. “We had a lot of rain, for many hours,” said Capt. Bob Bromage, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Department in Beaufort County, S.C., which includes Hilton Head Island. “We had flooding, we may have had some surge that we’re not aware of yet, we have downed trees, we have reports of downed trees on houses already.” Roads were clogged or impassible throughout much of the region. In Georgia, the authorities closed stretches of Interstate 95. Even in the parts that were open, the interstate was an obstacle course of debris, forcing cars and trucks to drive onto the waterlogged shoulders to avoid fallen pine trees that blocked the entire road. Police cars were parked at every exit, forbidding drivers from heading toward the coast. Countless other roads were blocked by downed power lines, fallen trees and windblown debris, and bridges were ordered closed because high winds made them too dangerous to use. State and local officials said it would be hours or days before they knew the full extent of the damage, and perhaps longer before people who had fled the coast could return. “When the storm hits, you’re praying, and then now the frustration sets in,” Gov. Nikki R. Haley said a news conference on Saturday. “And what I am going to ask for you is patience. Most injuries, most fatalities, occur after a storm because people attempt to move in too soon.” She warned that “all areas still remain dangerous.” In Jacksonville, Fla., where the storm passed the previous night, Lenny Curry, the mayor, said the focus was on opening streets by clearing branches and other obstructions. “Most of what we’ve experienced is trees, tree damage,” he said. “We are going to ride our people and ourselves hard to get back to normal.” Five deaths in Florida were attributed to the storm. More than a million homes and businesses in Florida remained without power on Saturday, more than 400,000 in South Carolina, and about 300,000 in Georgia. Those states, along with North Carolina, ordered the evacuation of areas that are home to nearly three million people. On the central and South Florida coasts, some people who had left for public shelters, hotels or friends’ homes inland were beginning to return. Many residents chose to ride out the storm, and there was a widespread sense that it could have been much worse. In Jacksonville Beach, three friends watched nature’s show on Friday from the fourth floor of a luxury apartment building, making jokes and checking weather reports, while on the other side of a thick glass balcony door, wind and rain whipped at palm trees and high, frothing surf pounded the beach. Drinking wine and eating, they watched, mesmerized, as the waves reached steadily higher, eventually cresting one of the main piers and demolishing part of it. “I just didn’t want to leave — didn’t feel the need to,” said one of the men, Mitch Kaufmann, 54. In Charleston, J. T. Thomas, 51, said it was the strongest storm he had experienced in decades. Yet even as the hurricane passed by on Saturday, he stayed on his yacht in the marina, watching the storm on the radar. “It’s a little roll-y,” Mr. Thomas said, “but nobody broke loose, and the tide’s gone out now.”