Hurricane Matthew batters the Florida coast

Within an hour of residents being allowed to return Saturday to Jacksonville Beach, Florida, David Villmow had fired up the two pizza ovens at his beachfront restaurant, The Art of Pizza. Crews could not safely respond to her location and the woman died by the time crews arrived, officials said.

The Daytona Beach fire department has also suspended operations due to wind, the Weather Channel reported Friday afternoon.

Matthew weakened slightly Friday morning to a Category 3 storm, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center says it’s expected to remain a powerful hurricane. According to the Meteorologists, storm surge in some areas had been measured at more than 4 feet. He commented that the surge wasn’t slow rising, but coming in “with great force”.

Haley called out cities and islands by name, worrying particularly about the high 8-feet storm surges flooding islands and surrounding areas.

Described as the “the most unsafe storm in living memory”, Hurricane Matthew has triggered mass evacuations along the east coast of the US.

More than 150,000 electric customers in SC were without power, and 250,000 were in the dark in coastal Georgia.

Close to half a million people were expected to have evacuated by Thursday, said Kim Stenson, director of South Carolina Emergency Management. The center of the storm is moving slowly up the coast.

The additional fatalities in North Carolina bring to 20 the number of USA deaths from the hurricane.

“We are all blessed that Matthew stayed off our coast”, Florida governor Rick Scott said. “This will kill you”.

Even as far north as Edisto Beach, South Carolina, 200 miles from the storm center – the surge was causing coastal flooding.

In North Carolina, a state of emergency has been expanded to all 100 counties.

A look at the Bahamas: In South Carolina, Gov. Nikki Haley reversed the lanes of Interstate 26 for the first time so that all lanes of traffic were headed west and out of Charleston.

The massive storm was expected to severely flood several historic cities across the East Coast of the U.S.

. Some hospitals in the area evacuated patients.

The National Weather Service issued serious warnings to Florida, Georgia and SC residents Friday, putting Matthew in the same league as Katrina as far as potential damage, rain and storm surge.

Hurricane Matthew’s trail of destruction in Haiti stunned those viewing the aftermath on Friday, with the number of dead soaring to 842, tens of thousands made homeless and crops destroyed in the impoverished Caribbean nation’s breadbasket region.

It was downgraded overnight from Category 4 to Category 3, which means winds of 111 to 129 miles per hour.

One city in the south of Haiti has experienced nearly complete destruction following the storm, while infrastructure across much of the country has been badly damaged and crops destroyed.

Other media outlets report much higher deaths.

At least four people were killed in the Dominican Republican.

The storm passed directly through the Tiburon peninsula – encompassing Haiti’s entire southern coast – driving the sea inland and flattening homes with winds of up to 230km/h and torrential rain, BBC reported.