Hurricane Matthew weakens to Category 1, makes landfall

Hurricane Matthew made landfall Saturday morning south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, after dousing historic cities and slashing power to hundreds of thousands as it continued its deadly crawl along the southeastern seaboard.

The storm weakened to a Category 1 hurricane overnight after being blamed for at least four deaths in Florida. It left a long trail of devastation across the Caribbean, leaving hundreds dead in impoverished Haiti.

Although the toll in Florida was not nearly as devastating as feared, forecasters warned it could still wreak havoc in places like Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Wilmington, North Carolina.

"We're already starting to see houses being impacted, and the heart of the storm is starting to hit us," North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said at a news conference Saturday morning. He warned of as much as 15 inches of rain and what could be the worst flooding since 1999, when Hurricane Floyd ravaged the state, killing 52 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Matthew was already thrashing the Georgia and South Carolina shorelines with ferocious winds and rain Saturday morning. In historic Charleston, streets were inundated with floodwaters as surrounding areas braced for potential destruction.

"Now is the time we ask for prayer," South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Friday night.

The storm cut power to more than 150,000 customers in South Carolina and some 250,000 in coastal Georgia, according to The Associated Press.

Matthew, the most powerful storm to threaten the U.S. in more than a decade, alarmed meteorologists and public officials as it swirled around the U.S.

But by and large, Matthew spared much of Florida, sidestepping the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas.

The deepest pain was inflicted on Haiti, where the death toll reportedly soared past 800. NBC News could not immediately confirm that figure.

The first reports trickling in from the remote southwestern peninsula hit hardest by the storm were dire. The United Nations warned that more than a million people were directly affected by Matthew and that some 350,000 people were in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless.

"We have nothing left," Saintful Jean Perpetu, who lives in the storm-ravaged town of Jeremie, told reporters. "Our personal things, important documents like birth certificates — it's all gone. We sleep on streets with our children and nobody came to help us until now. "

The monstrous storm, Perpetu said, "took shirts from our backs."

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been beset by disaster for many years. In addition to hurricanes, the island was rocked by a catastrophic earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 220,000 people, left 1.5 million others homeless and caused an estimated $14 billion in damage — a series of misfortunes from which it still has not recovered.