Hurricane Matthew kills hundreds in Haiti, batters the Bahamas
As Hurricane Matthew batters the southern Atlantic coast of the United States, the Caribbean is beginning their cleanup.
The nation of Haiti was hit the hardest, with Matthew responsible for more than 300 deaths. And in the Bahamas, the storm tore through Nassau, leaving a path of destruction, reports CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca.
New aerial pictures captured by a U.S. Coast Guard drone show just how vast damage in southwestern Haiti really is.
For the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the destruction is crippling. Red Cross shelters set up to aid the displaced and the injured are in short supply of food, water and medicine.
Help from the United Nations and the United States is already on the ground, but the assistance trickling into the hundreds of thousands who need it is slow.
“There’s no water,” said Moise David, head of the Haitian Red Cross. “We can’t help the people, there’s no food.”
In Cuba, cleanup from Matthew has already begun. Baracoa, on the eastern tip of the island, was devastated by storm surge and 100-mile-per-hour winds.
And in the Bahamas, the storm plowed through the island chain, tearing the roof off a home in Nassau – the first major hurricane to hit he Bahamian capital since the late 1920s.
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With Hurricane Matthew churning well to the north, the challenge now for these Caribbean nations is rebuilding. This is especially difficult for Haiti, a nation still recovering from the deadly 2010 earthquake.