Hurricane Matthew hits Florida today.

With torrential rains and 120 mile-an-hour wind, hurricane Matthew which tore through the Caribbean leaving about 300 dead in its wake has come upon Florida. Florida is presently faced with the most horrible hurricane in living memory. Although hurricane Matthew was downgraded, Friday morning, to a category 3 storm due to drop in wind speed, the storm is still expected to strike Florida and South Carolina.

State of emergencies have been declared by President Obama in major cities like Jacksonville, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with about three million residents evacuated. Also, about 140,000 homes and businesses in Florida have lost power.

According to Florida's governor Rick Scott "This storm is a monster. I want everybody to survive this. We can rebuild homes, we can rebuild business but we can't rebuild life."

Storm surge - (culled from guardian)

The storm will threaten Florida's beaches and ports with ferocious, howling wind and storm surges of up to 11 feet.

"And when you get the wind you will get immediate flooding, strong rip current, beach erosion. The risk of tornados," Scott warned.

"Think about this: 11 feet (3.3 meters) of possible storm surge. And on top of that, waves. So if you are close, you could have the storm surge and waves over your roof."

Highways were jammed with people streaming inland to escape the storm, forecast to be strong enough to snap trees and blow away roofs or entire houses.

As US gas stations ran dry, frantic shoppers flocked to stores for batteries, transistor radios, bread, canned goods, bottled water, ice and pet food.

Poor and vulnerable Haiti remained essentially cut in half two days after Matthew hit, with routes to the devastated south blocked by flooding. Amid conflicting death tolls, a senator from the south, Herve Fourcand, said more than 300 people there had died.

At least four people -- three of them children -- were killed in Haiti's neighbor the Dominican Republic and more than 36,500 were evacuated, with 3,000 homes destroyed, flooded or damaged.

The wealthier Bahamas, which had more time to prepare, was less badly hit and there were no reports of fatalities, but there were power outages, some roads were cut and there was property damage.

- Ghost resorts -

In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the normally bustling resort turned into a ghost town as tourists loaded up cars, cut short vacations and fled north.

Officials complained a worrying number of people were not heeding evacuation orders, and many communities set up storm shelters.

The county that includes Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center reported on Twitter that conditions had become too dangerous to respond to emergencies.

Meanwhile the fire service in St Augustine, northern Florida, issued a video message on Facebook warning that damage to the city was expected to be catastrophic and urged all holdouts to leave their homes.

"We as a city are evacuating," said Fire Chief Carlos Aviles.

"If you are choosing to stay in St Augustine, you are choosing to do so at your own risk. There will be no public safety personnel to assist you."

The largest shelter in the quaint beach city had reached its capacity of 500 people, and authorities turned frustrated residents back into the rain, pillows under their arms.

Miami International Airport canceled 90 percent of its incoming and outgoing flights on Thursday and Walt Disney World -- in Orlando, 35 miles inland -- was to stay shut on Friday.