Hurricane Matthew has left the Caribbean and begun what's expected to be a days-long pounding of the U-S east coast.
The storm was downgraded early Friday to Category 3 strength as it approached Florida with sustained winds of nearly 200 kilometres per hour.
Millions of people have been warned to flee inland ahead of the most powerful storm to threaten the Atlantic coast in more than a decade.
It's expected to blow ashore, or come dangerously close, sometime this morning.
Forecasters say it will likely then hug the coast of Georgia and South Carolina over the weekend before veering out to sea.
Matthew has left at least 280 people dead across the Caribbean, most of them in southwestern Haiti.