A broadcaster in the Bahamas says his country is being tested by perhaps the strongest hurricane to hit the island nation in four or five years.
Hurricane Matthew was upgraded to a category four storm before noon Thursday, just hours after it struck the southern tip of New Providence Island where the capital, Nassau is located.
Christopher Wells hosts a morning radio show in Freeport on the island of Grand Bahamas, south of Florida, and says one of the biggest challenges Thursday morning was getting accurate information.
"We had a family a little while ago -- we had to get police assistance to get them out of their home. Their entire roof had blown away, and they were trapped inside," he says. "We're still trying to confirm reports about the main power station on the island being underwater."
While Well says the storm isn't creating as much rain as others have in the past, Matthew is packing some very strong winds and was forecasted to create a storm surge of up to 15 ft.
"They have gusts up to 150 mph (241 km/hr)," says Wells. "Just imagine driving your car at 100 mph (160 km/hr) and sticking your hand out of the window -- plus more."
Wells says a major concern for residents is the impact the storm will have on aging infrastructure.
"We've had a lot of power outages over the last couple of months, and that's without any sorts of storms," he says.
Nearly 2-million people living along the coast of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas are being urged to evacuate their homes in advance of the storm making landfall in the U.S.