Hurricane Matthew, currently located off the coast of northeast Florida, has been threatening the Caribbean area for the past couple of days. The storm accumulated over the Atlantic ocean nearly two weeks ago, and has traveled over 3,000 miles since.

Even though the storm is only a category three on the one through five scale, state officials should highly suggest the removal of residents from high-risk areas. Damage to buildings may be replaceable, but a loss of lives is detrimental.

Last night, 842 Haiti residents were confirmed dead to damages from the storm. Hundreds of thousands of Florida residents have already lost power, and extreme flooding is expected later today. So, this is definitely something Florida officials and national government officials need to take seriously.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said that the storm has the potential to move onto Floridan land soon. As of right now, the storm threatens to seriously flood Jacksonville later today, which worries state officials and forecasters.

The hurricane is also projected to continue its northern move, infiltrating the risks of cities such as Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington, N.C. before moving further east, back into the Atlantic.

President Barack Obama has addressed the hurricane, and said it’s “still a really dangerous hurricane, [and] the potential for storm surge, flooding, loss of life and severe property damage continues to exist.”

Obama is right to warn citizens; we need to take this storm seriously, and provide proper evacuation methods and resources for residents in cities where flooding threatens to interfere.