At present, Hurricane Matthew is a Cat. 4 storm just south of Haiti and Jamaica, where the storm is expected to cause widespread destruction and flooding.
But near the end of the week, the storm will likely pass Florida to the east. It's not expected to make landfall in the state, but even the state's west coast could be stuck with strong winds and heavy rain.
On Monday afternoon, Governor Rick Scott declared a State of Emergency after meeting with emergency management officials in South Florida.
“Hurricane Matthew is a life-threatening category four hurricane and we must all take it seriously. If Hurricane Matthew directly impacts Florida, there could be massive destruction which we haven’t seen since Hurricane Andrew devastated Miami-Dade County in 1992. That is why we cannot delay and must prepare for direct impact now," he said in a press release. "We are preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best and we will not take any chances to ensure our state is prepared."
He urged Floridians to be prepared for a possible life-threatening scenario that could be brought on by tropical storm-force winds as the system passes by.
For officials in the Tampa Bay area, the storm makes for another potential sewage headache, especially in St. Petersburg, where city officials are still dealing with the political (and possibly environmental) fallout from the decision to dump tens of millions of gallons into Tampa Bay as volumes of rainwater from Hurricane Hermine taxed the wastewater system — it was either that or let sewage back up into people's homes, they said.
Check out the storm's forecast path here.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 7, 2016.