Believe it or not, politics isn’t\u00a0the only thing setting new records this year. Other forces of nature\u00a0have also\u00a0made the headlines and created just\u00a0as much devastation.<\/p>\n
The first spark of trouble occurred on September 28th, when a tropical storm emerged by the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea.\u00a0Three days later,\u00a0it escalated into a\u00a0Category 5 hurricane<\/a> that\u00a0barely spared\u00a0Colombia, complete with\u00a0160 mph winds and en-route to destroying Haiti.<\/p>\n \u201cThe roofs and tree branches flew away. Water started coming in, things were flying everywhere\u2026no one could get hold of them,\u201d said\u00a013-year-old Dicejour, a boy in Jeramie whose family survived\u00a0Hurricane Matthew<\/a> on the night of October 4th.<\/p>\n The rest of the Caribbean was struck on Thursday<\/a>, when Matthew moved through\u00a0the island countries of Cuba, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n By that point, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas had all declared states of emergency, with weather forecasts predicting landfall on Florida<\/a> after Matthew finished in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n “There are no excuses; you need to leave,” warned Florida governor Rick Scott on October 6th, amid winds and waves moving\u00a0up his state’s\u00a0eastern coast. “Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate…This storm will kill you.”<\/p>\n In the end, Florida got lucky and Hurricane Matthew, subsiding to Category 3,\u00a0never made landfall. It stayed about 30 miles off the coastline<\/a> and battered the state all day Friday, leaving four people dead and rendering more\u00a0than a million without power.<\/p>\n The body count in Haiti was estimated at over 800 by that evening, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0the island of Bermuda was on the watch\u00a0for Hurricane Nicole, which had just achieved hurricane status on October 6th and could potentially affect Matthew’s movements.<\/p>\n There were also rumors that Matthew could hit U.S. mainland twice<\/a>.<\/p>\n “While a loop back towards Florida and the Bahamas next week is not yet a sure thing,” said Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters, “the increasing trend of our top models in that direction is a strong indication that Matthew will be around for a very long time.”<\/p>\n The much anticipated landfall onto American soil finally occurred\u00a0last Saturday morning, with Hurricane Matthew directly hitting South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane<\/a> and causing the\u00a0highest coastal tides on record.<\/p>\n Nevertheless,\u00a0instead of moving off the U.S. coastline and disappearing into the Atlantic as several models predicted, Matthew continued to shimmy\u00a0up the East Coast. The hurricane treated North Carolina and southern Virginia<\/a> to historic\u00a0flooding, downed trees and power lines, and over 12 inches of rain last Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandpa\u2019s still in shock,\u201d said Brittany Graham, a lady in Lumberton, N.C. \u201cHe didn\u2019t prepare anything because from what we heard, we were just going to get a little bit of rain. Basically, all his stuff is ruined.\u201d<\/p>\n The New York Times reports that more than 3,000 people were in shelters, and about\u00a0770,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. As of yet, Matthew is responsible for 22 deaths in North Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you go from a Category 4 hurricane to a Category 1, the danger of harm is still there,\u201d Governor McCrory said. \u201cWhat those categories don\u2019t include is how water can kill.\u201d<\/p>\n By evening, Hurricane Matthew got demoted to post-tropical cyclone<\/a>, despite\u00a0its winds remaining\u00a0just as strong as those of a Category 1 hurricane. The rain and gusts affecting\u00a0North Carolina fully disappeared on Tuesday as Matthew moved away from the coast, leaving widespread flooding in its wake and 44 American deaths<\/a>, as of Saturday.<\/p>\n Attention is now focused upon Hurricane Nicole, which achieved Category 4 status last Wednesday before directly striking\u00a0Bermuda<\/a> the next day.<\/p>\n “Could be historic as zero Category 4 hurricanes have ever hit Bermuda in the NHC historical record,” tweeted Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center.<\/p>\n