South Carolina Gov. Calls For Prayer as Hurricane Matthew Heads Their Way

Hurricane Matthew has downgraded to a category 1 storm, but it's still packing a powerful punch as it barrels up the Atlantic coast, bringing strong winds and heavy rains.

Matthew was making headway into South Carolina Saturday morning, where more than 300,000 people evacuated their homes.

Hurricane-force winds were moving on-shore at Hilton Head and Pritchards Island the National Hurricane Center reported.

"Now is the time we ask for prayer," Gov. Nikki Haley said as she finished an update on storm preparations. "We need to really say prayers, not just for those in Florida and Georgia, but now it is about South Carolina."

More than 150,000 people lost power - mostly in Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina. 

Despite not making landfall in Florida, the storm killed at least four people and knocked out power in more than a million homes and businesses. 

"We have been very fortunate that Matthew's strongest winds have remained a short distance offshore of the Florida and Georgia coasts thus far, but this should not be a reason to let down our guard," a meteorologist with the Hurricane Center said in a forecast discussion.

The storm destroyed large sections of the coastal A1A highway north of Daytona Beach and nearly washed out a mile stretch of the northbound lane of Flagler Beach.

"It's pretty bad; it's jagged all over the place," said Oliver Shields, whose two-story house is within sight of the highway.

St. Augustine, the nation's oldest permanently occupied European settlement, was washed out by rain and seawater. Authorities reported that water levels reached upward of eight feet. 

"It's a really serious devastating situation," Mayor Nancy Shaver said of the city of 14,000. "The flooding is just going to get higher and higher and higher."

About 500,000 people were under evacuation orders in the Jacksonville, Fla. area, along with another half-million on the Georgia coast. 

Steve Todd of Tybee, Ga., told The Associated Press that he refused to evacuate.

"I'm not regretting staying," Todd said by phone. "But I'm not going to lie. There's a little bit of nervous tension right now."

Todd said he was staying with friends at a third-story condo, which had lost electricity.

"It's throwing down right now," Todd said when the storm was passing over Georgia. "The trees are bending over. We saw a bush fly by. It's raining sideways now."

The Category 2 storm will near North Carolina southern coast by Saturday night according to the National Hurricane Center.