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Coastal Florida and S. Carolina urged to evacuate as Matthew takes aim

People line up to fill their cars with gas in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew, in Coral Springs, Florida,

By Letitia Stein and Harriet McLeod

TAMPA, Fla./CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – Millions of people along the U.S. Southeast coast were urged on Wednesday to evacuate and prepare for Hurricane Matthew as the potentially devastating storm took aim at Florida and South Carolina.

Matthew, currently pummeling the Bahamas, was forecast to begin lashing Florida with fierce winds, storm surges and heavy rain late on Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It has the potential to be the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005.

Governor Rick Scott urged those in vulnerable areas to evacuate early, even if orders had not yet been issued.

“We must prepare to be hit by a devastating hurricane,” Scott told a news conference, noting that a small wobble in Matthew’s path could hugely impact the state.

The governors in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia have all declared states of emergencies.

Matthew, currently a major Category Three storm, was carrying maximum sustained winds around 120 mph (195 kph) on Wednesday morning, according to the Miami-based NHC.

It was likely to strengthen slightly in the coming days, the NHC added, saying it was too soon to predict where Matthew was likely to do the most damage.

“When a hurricane is forecast to take a track roughly parallel to a coastline, as Matthew is forecast to do from Florida through South Carolina, it becomes very difficult to specify impacts at any one location,” the NHC said in an advisory.

“Only a small deviation of the track to the left of the NHC forecast could bring the core of a major hurricane onshore within the hurricane warning area in Florida. However, a small deviation to the right could keep the hurricane-force winds offshore,” it said.

Florida’s governor activated an additional 300 members of the state National Guard on Wednesday, adding to 200 already summoned the day before.

People queue as they flock to the supermarket to take care of last minute shopping in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew, in Coral Springs, Florida, U.S. October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Henry Romero

Several school districts had canceled classes for Thursday and Friday, and some were releasing students early on Wednesday.

In South Carolina, about a quarter of a million residents were expected to evacuate from coastal areas.

“If you do not leave, you are putting a National Guardsmen’s or a law enforcement officer’s life on the line,” Governor Nikki Haley said.

As thousands began to evacuate vulnerable areas in South Carolina on Wednesday, drivers reported gridlock delaying traffic for hours. Schools and county government offices in 26 of the state’s 46 counties closed through Friday.

The city of Charleston handed out sandbags and shovels. Gasoline stations in the area posted “out of gas” signs as cars lined up to fill up the tank, but state officials said they know of no significant shortages.

The judge overseeing the murder trial of a Georgia father accused of intentionally leaving his toddler son in a hot car to die in 2014 canceled court for Thursday afternoon and Friday due to the storm.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Tom Brown)

Hurricane Matthew hammers Haiti and Cuba, bears down on U.S.

By Makini Brice and Sarah Marsh

LES CAYES, Haiti/GUANTANAMO, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, hit Cuba and Haiti with winds of well over 100 miles-per-hour on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take cover.

Dubbed by the U.N. the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, the Category Four hurricane unleashed torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

As it barreled towards the United States, the eye of the storm had moved off the northeastern coast of Cuba by Tuesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

At least four people were killed in the Dominican Republic by collapsing walls and mudslides, as well as two in Haiti, where communications in the worst-hit areas were down, making it hard for authorities to assess the scale of the damage.

“Haiti is facing the largest humanitarian event witnessed since the earthquake six years ago,” said Mourad Wahba, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Haiti.

Over 200,000 people were killed in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, by the January 2010 earthquake.

Matthew was blowing sustained winds of 140 mph (230 kph) or more for much of Tuesday, though as night fell, the windspeed eased to about 130 mph, the NHC said.

Early reports suggested that Cuba had not been hit as hard as Haiti, where the situation was described as “catastrophic” in the port town of Les Cayes.

In the Cuban city of Guantanamo, streets emptied as people moved to shelters or inside their homes.

Matthew is likely to remain a powerful hurricane through at least Thursday night as it sweeps through the Bahamas towards Florida and the Atlantic coast of the southern United States, the NHC said. The storm is expected to be very near the east cost of Florida by Thursday evening, the center added.

The governor of South Carolina ordered the evacuation of more than 1 million people from Wednesday afternoon.

With communications out across most of Haiti and a key bridge impassable because of a swollen river, there was no immediate word on the full extent of potential casualties and damage from the storm in the poorest country in the Americas.

But Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters in Washington the U.S. Navy was considering sending an aircraft carrier and other ships to the region to aid relief efforts.

The United States has already offered Haiti the use of some helicopters, said Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph, who added that damage to housing and crops in the country was apparently extensive.

Twice destroyed by hurricanes in the 18th century, Les Cayes was hit hard by Matthew.

“The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic, the city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places and you can barely move around. The wind has damaged many houses,” said Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme, who fled a house in the town of about 70,000 when the wind ripped the roof off.

One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the nearby beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. The body of a second man who went missing at sea was also recovered, the government said. Another fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

As much as 3 feet (1 meter) of rain was forecast to fall over hills in Haiti that are largely deforested and prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shantytowns in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The hurricane has hit Haiti at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings because of the 2010 earthquake.

“Farms have been hit really hard. Things like plantains, beans, rice – they’re all gone,” said Hervil Cherubin, country director in Haiti for Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that is working with 30,000 farming families across Haiti. “Most of the people are going to have to start all over again. Whatever they accumulated the last few years has been all washed out.”

Matthew was churning around 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the eastern tip of Cuba at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT). It was moving north at about 8 miles per hour (13 kph), the NHC said.

Cuba’s Communist government traditionally puts extensive efforts into saving lives and property in the face of storms, and authorities have spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm thrashed the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo, passing close to the disputed U.S. Naval base and military prison.

The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children along with 65 pets of service personnel as the storm approached. U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier canceled a trip to Florida scheduled for Wednesday because of the potential impact of the storm, the White House said.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida from an area just north of Miami Beach to the Volusia-Brevard county line, near Cape Canaveral, which the storm could reach on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

Tropical storm or hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the NHC said.

Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Makini Brice in Les Cayes; Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Cuba and Jorge Pineda in Dominican Republic; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner, Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)

Six-year-old boy shot at South Carolina school dies from wound

n Anderson County sheriff's deputy stands outside of Townville Elementary School after a shooting in Townville, South Carolina,

(Reuters) – A 6-year-old South Carolina boy wounded in a schoolyard shooting died on Saturday, a coroner said, a day after a teenage suspect was charged with murdering his own father and wounding the boy, a teacher and another student.

The boy, Jacob Hall, was shot on Wednesday at Townville Elementary School in Townville, South Carolina after the 14-year-old suspect is alleged to have crashed his pickup truck into a fence around the school and opened fire.

“Unfortunately he’s lost the battle, at 12:56 p.m. today” at a Greenville hospital, Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore said by telephone. He said he would be transported for an autopsy on Sunday.

Jacob had been on life support after a bullet ripped his femoral artery, causing blood loss that led to major brain injury, his family has said.

The suspect was charged in 10th Judicial Circuit court on Friday with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. The hearing was behind closed doors because the teenager is a juvenile.

Authorities say the suspect shot and killed his father, Jeffrey Osborne, 47, as the man watched television at their home about 2 miles (3 km) from the school.

The teenager then drove to the school where he shot Jacob, another 6-year-old boy and a teacher, police have said.

Authorities said they did not know of any link between the shooter, who was home-schooled, and the victims.

Boy, 6, fights for his life after South Carolina school shooting

Sheriffs and officers at the scene of the South Carolina School Shooting

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A first grader who was shot and wounded by a 14-year-old boy accused of killing his father before he opened fire outside a South Carolina elementary school is “fighting for his life,” a fire chief and the boy’s family said on Thursday.

Jacob Hall, 6, was struck in the leg on Wednesday afternoon during a shooting spree that also wounded another boy and a first-grade teacher at Townville Elementary School, about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Atlanta.

Police said the teenager crashed a pickup truck into a fence around the rural school’s playground after he fatally shot his father, Jeffrey DeWitt Osborne, 47, at their home about 2 miles (3 km) away. The teen, who has not been named, is in custody.

“I hate my life,” he said before firing a handgun at the school, the Greenville News reported, citing the aunt of a 6-year-old girl who was headed outside for recess at the time.

The incident was the latest in a series of shootings at U.S. schools that has fueled debate about access to guns in America. Many schools have beefed up security precautions since 2012, when a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Hall’s family said in a statement the 6-year-old was a “very sick little boy.” The message, provided through the Greenville Health System Children’s Hospital where he remains in critical condition, said a bullet tore through his femoral artery, causing massive blood loss that led to a “major brain injury.”

Billy McAdams, chief of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department, choked up on Thursday as he asked for prayers for “little Jacob,” whom he had helped treat at the scene.

“He’s still fighting for his life,” McAdams told a news conference.

Teacher Meghan Hollingsworth, who was shot in the shoulder, and the other boy, also 6, according to media reports, were treated and released.

McAdams credited fellow first responders and the school’s staff for taking action to prevent another school massacre. Hollingsworth shepherded students inside to safety and urged medical staff to care for the injured children before her, he said.

Jamie Brock, a 30-year veteran of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department, was unarmed when he confronted the shooter and pinned him down for police, McAdams said.

Brock has declined media interviews, saying he wanted the focus to remain on the victims.

“The true heroes of yesterday’s senseless tragedy are the teachers that put their lives on the line to protect the students,” Brock said in a statement read by McAdams at the news conference. “This will not take us down.”

Authorities said they did not know of any connection between the shooter and the school victims but had ruled out terrorism and ethnicity as motivating factors.

The suspect, who was home-schooled, was emotional when he called his grandparents Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.

His grandmother “could not make out what he was saying because he was crying and upset, and so they went to the house, and that’s when she discovered her son and called 911,” coroner Greg Shore told reporters. The teenager was gone.

His mother offered no insight into his motive in a statement released to media on her behalf on Thursday.

“Our entire family is absolutely shocked and saddened by the senseless actions of our son and grandson,” the statement said.

(Additional reporting Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait)

Investigators search for clues in South Carolina school shooting

Police officers investigate the scene of the shooting in the South Carolina Elementary school

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – Investigators were searching on Thursday for the motive behind a shooting spree by a South Carolina teenager who killed his father and wounded two school students and a teacher before being pinned down by a volunteer fireman.

The incident was the latest in a series of shootings at U.S. schools that has fueled debate about access to guns in America.

The 14-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, shot and killed his father, Jeffrey DeWitt Osborne, 47, on Wednesday afternoon.

Then he drove to Townville Elementary School, where he shot two boys and a woman teacher with a handgun, before being subdued by the volunteer firefighter, police said.

Authorities said they were checking if there was a connection between the gunman and the school victims, but had ruled out terrorism and ethnicity as motivating factors.

The suspect was in custody and interviewed by investigators on Wednesday night, Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper told a news conference.

“We are in the process of taking him through the legal process,” he added.

Authorities said the suspect was home-schooled and called his grandmother, who went to his home and found his father.

“She could not make out what he was saying because he was crying and upset, and so they went to the house, and that’s when she discovered her son and called 911,” coroner Greg Shore told the news conference.

Next, the boy drove a pickup truck about 2 miles (3.2 km) to the school, and crashed into a fence around the playground before shooting the other three victims, police said.

One boy, Jacob Hall, 6, was shot in the leg, police said. He is in critical condition, Greenville Health System spokeswoman Sandy Dees said.

The other boy, also 6, according to media reports, was shot in the foot and the teacher was shot in the shoulder, authorities said.

Both were treated and released from hospital, said Ross Norton, a spokesman for AnMed Health Medical Center.

Volunteer firefighter Jamie Brock pinned down the teenager after he began shooting, as staff led children to safety, Taylor Jones, the emergency services director for Anderson County, told a news conference.

Brock, a 30-year veteran of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department, was hailed on social media as a hero and credited with preventing another school massacre.

Police arrived within minutes of a 911 call to take the suspect into custody. He never entered the school building, said Chief Deputy Keith Smith.

About 280 students attend the school in Anderson County, near the Georgia state line about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Atlanta. It will stay shut on Thursday and Friday as authorities investigate.

U.S. schools have beefed up security precautions since 2012, when a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Immediately after the shooting, armed officers guarded the students as they traveled by bus from the school to a nearby church, media said. Television images showed police swarming the school, with some officers on the roof.

Wednesday’s events follow a Texas incident this month in which a 14-year-old girl shot and wounded a fellow student before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(Additional reporting Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Storm Julia weakens into a depression, meandering off of U.S. coast

(Updates with details)

Sept 15 (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Julia weakened into a depression and is expected to meander off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina for the next few days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Thursday.

Julia is located about 60 miles (95 km) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph), the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

“A slow and erratic motion is expected over the next couple of days, and the track forecast keeps Julia meandering offshore of the Georgia and southern South Carolina coastlines into Saturday,” the NHC said.

Julia, the 10th named storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, was moving northeast at 2 mph just off the U.S. coast, as little change TO its strength was expected during next two days, it said.

Heavy rain combined with high tides raised concerns of flooding in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, and other coastal parts of the state into Thursday morning, forecasters said.

Some residents in coastal communities were offered sandbags to prepare for flooding in low-lying areas.

Since late Tuesday, Julia has dumped heavy rains and toppled trees in the region, but has not caused significant damage, the National Weather Service said.

On Thursday morning, the hurricane center also was tracking a tropical depression that was expected to bring heavy rains to the Cape Verde islands off West Africa. On its forecasted track, the system would remain far away from the coastal United States through early next week.

(Reporting by Karen Rodrigues in Bengaluru and Brendan O’Brien
in Milwaukee; Editing by Alison Williams)

A year later, Charleston families still reeling from church shooting

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – Many were surprised when Nadine Collier stood in a South Carolina courtroom a year ago and said she forgave the young white man who had just killed her mother and eight other black churchgoers in a racially motivated attack.

Collier’s sister, the Reverend Sharon Risher, recalls wondering how she could so readily absolve Dylann Roof, 22, the man accused of opening fire during a Bible study on June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Ahead of the first anniversary on Friday, Risher and some others affected by the killings still cannot bring themselves to forgive. Roof will go on trial in November on federal hate crime charges that could result in a death sentence before facing state murder charges in January.

“I’m not bitter,” Risher, 57, said in a phone interview. “But I’m just not ready to forgive you if you don’t even act like you want to be forgiven.”

One year after that attack, the nation is again reeling from gun violence. The deaths of 49 people in Orlando this week in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history has left dozens more families blindsided by tragedy.

There will be no criminal proceedings for the Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, who died in a gunfight with police. And while the shooting inside the historic church led to the removal of the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s capitol, it remains to be seen whether the latest massacre will spur change.

Away from the spotlight, the stories of those personally touched by the violence in Charleston illustrate its lasting impact. It continues to affect their lives, they said, straining family relationships, shifting career paths and leaving voids in their lives that no form of justice can fill.

Risher left her emergency room chaplain job in Dallas this spring, finding its emotional demands to be too much as she grieves her mother, Ethel Lance.

Some members of her family have become estranged in the aftermath of the shooting, she said, as each person mourns differently and struggles to make sense of what happened.

Risher longs for the days when she used to lie in her mother’s king-sized bed and they talked until one of them fell asleep.

“Charleston does not hold the same magic for me anymore,” she said. “Now going back, it’s just a cloud that hangs over. Even though the sun is shining, to me I see the gray.”

‘WE’RE THROUGH WITH HIM’

The Reverend Anthony Thompson’s wife, Myra, was killed in the attack, but he said he began to heal when he offered forgiveness to Roof at the bond hearing two days after the shooting.

Thompson, 65, has not attended subsequent hearings, choosing instead to focus on his preaching and new work advocating against gun violence.

“Dylann is not a part of my life or the life of my children,” he said. “That’s why we forgave him so that we can move on. We’re through with him.”

Alana Simmons, 26, lost her grandfather, the Reverend Daniel Simmons Sr., in the shooting and her professional life changed course after that. The middle school music teacher moved from Virginia to South Carolina to run the Hate Won’t Win Movement, a non-profit organization that advocates for unity in a diverse society.

Focusing on the good to come from the tragedy helps her cope, she said.

“I don’t think that I could harbor hate in my heart and then go out and preach love,” she said.

Arthur Hurd, 46, remains angry. Angry at the church for keeping some of the more than $3 million in donations it received rather than distributing it all to the survivors and victims’ families. Angry that whether or not Roof gets the death penalty, it will not bring Hurd’s wife, Cynthia, back.

He has not returned to his job as a merchant mariner since her death. A grief counselor told him he is not ready, Hurd said.

“The only way I can jump for joy for the death penalty is if I am the one pulling the switch,” he said. “I have a hole in my chest, in my heart and my soul big enough that you could ride a freight train through it.”

(Additional reporting and writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

Death toll rises to 8 as tornadoes sweep through Southeast

The death toll from the severe thunderstorms and tornadoes that damaged homes and businesses across the United States over the past two days now stands at eight, officials said.

The National Weather Service received 68 reports of tornadoes in the Gulf Coast and Southeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with about 500 reports of wind damage from Florida to Maine. The reports mentioned damages to homes and businesses, indicating some were destroyed, as well as numerous downed trees and power lines throughout the storm area.

Tornadoes were reported in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida on Tuesday, and Florida, Virginia and North Carolina on Wednesday. It’s possible that some of those storm reports reference the same funnel cloud, as there are numerous counties listed multiple times.

Officials said severe weather killed five people Wednesday, four in Virginia and one in South Carolina. They came a day after tornadoes killed two people in Louisiana and one in Mississippi.

The Virginia State Police said three people were killed in Waverly, where a funnel cloud was reportedly spotted, and “significant debris” left two state highways impassible in the area.

Officials in Appomattox County said one person was killed after a reported tornado left a trail of destruction that stretched at least eight miles. In a Facebook post, they said some 100 structures were damaged — 20 severely — and 40 percent of the county’s homes were without power.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, joining governors in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who issued similar decrees for the severe weather.

McAuliffe’s office said the governor was heading out to survey the damage on Thursday.

The National Weather Service’s reports indicate multiple houses were destroyed near Richmond, Virginia, and five houses were damaged near Granville, North Carolina, a snippet of the storm’s impact.

The reports also say winds toppled trees and power lines in areas where tornadoes weren’t seen.

In South Carolina, the Darlington County Coroner’s Office said a 58-year-old man was killed by a falling tree as he tried to remove storm debris from a road near his home.

Those downed trees and limbs helped knock out power to tens of thousands of people along the East Coast, some of whom were still without electricity on Thursday morning.

That included about 45,000 customers in Connecticut, local utility company Eversource said.

“A Different Kind of Bad” 2nd Wave of Flooding to Hit South Carolina Coast

Predictions for more rain in South Carolina are throwing more concerns on an already battered state as the low areas of the coast brace for the water heading their way.

Gov. Nikki Haley said at a news conference that people in flood-prone parts of four counties should “strongly consider evacuating,” including the 10,000 residents of Georgetown.

“If you’re in the area of Georgetown you’re going to see people knocking on your door telling you to get out,” she said.

The Governor is concerned that residents who have already gone through the historic rainfall and have been through hurricanes, will be complacent about this new wave of flooding heading their way. “This is a different kind of bad.”

Churches have risen to provide essential support for those affected, according to Vocativ, an online publisher that used geo-location technology to assess social media posts from areas hardest hit by the flooding,

NewSpring Church, which has 10 locations throughout the state, has launched a massive effort tagged #FloodSCWithLove to provide aid to families affected by the disaster.

The church has delivered truckloads of supplies, including water, non-perishable food items and blankets, to local shelters. Other churches have manned together to volunteer and also help distribute these much needed items.

South Carolina Suffers and Braces for More Flooding

The Rivers are rising to historic levels as dams break with others at the brink. The death toll has risen to 17 in the Carolinas with no end in site to the massive flooding as most of the waterways have not reached their crest.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley says state wildlife officials have made at least 600 rescues during the flooding that has ravaged the state.

She says the central area of the state is recovering as the waters recede, but officials are keeping a close eye on the southeastern part of the state.

She added 62 dams across the state are being monitored and 13 had already failed.

More than 400,000 state residents were under a “boil water advisory” affecting about 16 water systems, said Jim Beasley, a spokesman for the S.C. Emergency Response Team.

The damage in South Carolina is still being assessed and numbers are up in the air regarding how many have lost homes and their businesses. Costs in recovery are being estimated at close to a billion and will not be truly known until the flooding recedes.

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