'We dodged a bullet': Yorkton man about hurricane Matthew

A Yorkton man, now living in Florida, anxiously waited in his home for hurricane Matthew to strike on Thursday.

Todd Hubs lives eight miles from the ocean and an hour away from where 100 miles an hour winds hit Cape Canaveral.

“People are saying we dodged a bullet,” he said.

“We got hit pretty hard overnight but luckily we survived without any major incidents. There were a few trees down in our local neighbourhood and we still have power. A lot of our friends weren’t so lucky. They don’t have power and some trees came down on houses.”

The wind in Hubs’ neighbourhood reportedly got to 70 to 80 miles an hour.

“I felt like Oscar the Grouch in a garbage can because we’re all enclosed with the storm shutters we had to put up to protect the windows from flying debris. Last night listening the winds it was like a freight train coming down the tracks,” said Hubs.

Authorities are warning that the danger is far from over. Hundreds of miles of coastline in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are still under threat of torrential rain as the deadly storm surges.

There is also still a threat inland.

“It still has time to do a direct hit,” Gov. Rick Scott said Friday morning. “This is not over. … It could be the worst part of this is yet to come.”

DECIDING TO STAY

Hubs and his family decided to stay in their home to wait out the storm.

“We kind of tossed the idea around yesterday but we figured we would just sit here and hunker it out and everybody in our immediate neighbourhood decided to do the same. Everybody was helping everybody get their storm shutters up and get prepared as best as we could.”

Hubs said he and his family are glad they didn’t take their chances on the road.

“We could’ve evacuated at the last minute but the thing is there’s no guarantee we’re going to be any further away or be any safer. We could’ve been sitting in traffic at I-95 and I’d rather be in my home hunkered down than sitting in my vehicle that could have been tossed around like a little rag doll.”

WAITING FOR THE STORM TO STRIKE

The worst part for the family was waiting for the storm.

“The anticipation of the storm coming was worse than anything because everyone’s waiting for it to happen just like you guys up in Canada waiting for a snow storm to come,” said Hubs.

“We climbed into bed around 10 o’clock last night and kind of watched the news from there. I didn’t sleep a wink.”

(With files from the Canadian Press)