The 130mph winds unleashed by Hurricane Matthew have killed at least 840 people on Haiti and left more than 300,000 homeless.
Whole communities on the poverty-stricken island have been destroyed in the devastation which was laid bare yesterday.
In the regional capital of Jeremie, 80 per cent of buildings were levelled. Others lost their roofs as clothes and other possessions were left strewn across muddy streets.
The Caribbean bore the brunt of the damage from the Category 3 storm which skirted the Florida coast yesterday.
But the state still suffered in its wake as 121mph winds brought a storm surge of up to 12ft and more than 10in of rain.
Roofs were peeled off homes, trees were uprooted and the state’s multi-million dollar tourism industry was hit as attractions in Orlando, including Disney World, SeaWorld and Universal Studios, were shut.
Daytona Beach and the city of Orlando, both popular with British tourists, were put under curfew until 7am today.
Some flights to and from the UK to the storm-affected area were cancelled, although flights from Heathrow to Miami were still taking off yesterday.
The first US casualty was reportedly a 58-year-old woman in St Lucie County, Florida, who died of a heart attack.
More than three million people had already left their homes to flee to safety. Of those who remained, some 600,000 were left without power.
At Cape Canaveral, home to Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre, Sandy Wilk tweeted: "We are seriously ground zero here. Hunkered down, lights flickering, winds are crazy."
Both presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton shut down their campaign offices in Florida.
Trump’s £6 million seaside estate in Palm Beach, Mar-A-Lago, was set to take a battering as were dozens of mansion in the area owned by billionaires.
The storm, one of the strongest to hit the Caribbean and US, also killed four people in the Dominican Republic. Luxury hotels in the Bahamas were also damaged by winds reaching 145mph and telephone pylons were uprooted in the capital Nassau.
Some 26 million people have been affected by Hurricane Matthew as it covers almost half of the US East Coast.
The storm, which has swollen to 170 square miles in size, is set to continue north until tomorrow before weakening.