Thousands of Americans trapped by Hurricane Matthew floodwaters as death toll in US and Haiti reaches 1,000
Devastation in the US came as Haiti began three days of national mourning
HURRICANE Matthew is continuing to cause a trail of death and destruction in the US - with thousands trapped by floodwater needing to be rescued and more than a million without power.
When Hurricane Matthew dumped torrential rains on North Carolina, thousands of people found themselves suddenly trapped in homes and cars.
Rescuers in Coast Guard helicopters plucked some of them from rooftops and used military vehicles to reach others, including a woman who held on to a tree for three hours after her car was overrun by flood waters.
In another dramatic rescue, a woman with her small child perched on the roof of her car had to be helped to safety as the waters rose around them, underscoring how quickly Matthew wreaked havoc 100 miles or more inland after sparing much of the Southeastern coast the catastrophic damage once feared.
The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 18 in the US nearly half of them in North Carolina. Most were swept away by flood waters.
Gov. Pat McCrory said authorities were searching for five people and feared they may find more victims. The problems were far from over as all that rain more than a foot in places flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing days of major flooding in many of the same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
"Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly," McCrory said.
Princeville, a town of 2,000 that disappeared in the waters of the Tar River during Floyd, was evacuated Sunday as the river was expected to rise to 17 feet above flood stage by late Monday a level not seen since Floyd. McCrory expected more evacuations as some rivers were predicted to crest next Friday.
More than a million people in South Carolina and North Carolina were without power, and at least four separate sections of Interstate 95 the main artery linking the East Coast from Florida to Maine were closed in North Carolina.
The ferocity of the rain caught people by surprise. Ezekiel Crowe escaped the floods in Fayetteville on Saturday with his parents and seven brothers and sisters when a police boat plucked them from an apartment as the waters rose.
"I was scared. I was scared. And I thought, I thought the world was going to end. But it didn't," he said.
After leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake, Matthew finally made landfall on Saturday - the period in which a storm moves over land after being over water and becomes a regular tornado.
Americans in some states began the process of cleaning up and recovering on Saturday as Hurricane Matthew neared the end of its four day rampage which left 1.4 million without power and 500 dead in Haiti.
The storm has now been downgraded to a category one as it moves through North and South Carolina.
Although Americans are now starting to clean up the damage caused by the storm, various roads were still impassable, there was a curfew on Savannah for a second night running and residents became increasingly frustrated that they were prevented from returning to homes.
Eric Thomas, 42, a local business owner, brought his own chainsaw to cut down a fallen tree that blocked access on the road from Savannah to Tybee Island, desperate to get home.
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Although he and his friends cleared the road, police barred residents from driving across until Sunday at the earliest.
Thomas told AFP that he heard there was "substantial" damage on the island.
On Saturday night in Florida power was slowly being restored. Officials said that some 879,000 customers still were without power, or nine percent.
In Jacksonville, Florida, the rain had stopped. There were fallen trees and flooding but no major damage.
But the nearby historic town of St Augustine, a former Spanish colony that calls itself the nation's oldest city, was not so lucky.
There was "a lot of damage," Commander Chuck Mulligan, spokesman for the St Johns County Sheriff's Office, told AFP.
At its peak, the monster hurricane was a category four as it slammed Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere last Tuesday.
Tides of up to 9ft buffeted the city of Charleston as sea water made it over the sea defences and flooded the historic area with ten inches of water.
Incredible images showed locals wading through the water that has inundated the port city.
Millions along the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina now face a long wait to have their power switched back on.
But despite flooding, fallen trees and power outages, most of the American southeast appeared to have been spared catastrophic damage as the storm surge turned out to be less severe than expected.
Nine Americans are now said to have been killed during the ferocious storms.
On Saturday, the centre of Matthew made landfall in the South Carolina town of McClellanville and there was a "serious inland flooding event unfolding," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.
McClellanville is about 35 miles (56 kilometres) northeast of Charleston.
But tiny Haiti bore the brunt of the tragedy as it announced the deaths of almost 500 people on Saturday.
The impoverished country is expecting to see that number rise further still.
Up to 90 per cent of the worst-affected areas have been destroyed.
The interim president of Haiti, Jocelerme Privert, announced three days of national mourning, beginning Sunday.
The scope of the devastation in the south of the country was becoming clearer as the toll remains provisional due to the difficulty of gaining access to some areas and communications.
Aerial pictures of Haiti show a picture of devastation as rescuers struggle to reach isolated villages.
The UN said it expected the number of dead to rise even further, while the head of Haiti's civil protection services, Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste, told AFP that "we won't have a definitive toll before Wednesday".
Around 350,000 people are in desperate need of emergency aid, it warned.
And terrifying footage showed the power of storm surges that experts fear could threaten the Carolinas until tonight.
One home was buffeted by the powerful waves as they crashed into the patio doors.
Florida breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as much of the state avoided serious damage.
Matthew stalked the eastern coast for much of the day, eventually making landfall near the Cape Canaveral space port.
More than 4,500 flights have been cancelled so far between Wednesday and Saturday, and major tourist attractions in Florida have been shut down.
Disney World was amongst those - closing its door for the first time in 11 years.
Power was cut off for more than 600,000 in Florida and Georgia overnight.
President Barack Obama called for those staying in their property to heed the warnings of local officials.
He said: "This is still a really dangerous hurricane, that the potential for storm surge, flooding, loss of life and severe property damage continues to exist.
“Do not be a holdout here, because we can always replace property but we can’t replace lives."
Earlier yesterday, some Floridians had expressed regrets at not fleeing before the "terrifying" storm hit.
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