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Hurricane Mathew killed more than 100 people in Haiti before gaining steam ahead of its landfall in Florida, where millions of panicked residents were evacuating coastal areas and stocking up on crucial supplies.

The powerful storm, which was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane again Thursday morning and now carries sustained winds of 140 mph, is set to slam into West Palm Beach by early Friday.

More than 2 million people from four states in Matthew’s path were forced out of their homes because of the storm — the largest mandatory evacuation since Hurricane Sandy.

“Don’t take a chance,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday. “If you need to evacuate and you haven’t, evacuate. This storm will kill you. Time is running out. We don’t have that much time left.”

His urgent request came as Haitian officials revealed that at least 108 people, a number that is expected to rise in the next few days, were killed when the storm tore through the country earlier in the week.

Southern parts of the region are now “cut off from the rest of the country,” Jean-Michel Vigreux, who directs a nonprofit group based in Haiti, told ABC News.

Hurricane Matthew approaches the East Coast of the United States in this image from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite taken Oct. 6, 2016.ReutersHurricane Matthew approaches the East Coast of the United States in this image from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite taken Oct. 6, 2016.Reuters

Meanwhile, in Florida, frantic residents preparing for a major hit scurried around Thursday trying to gather as many supplies as possible before Matthew arrived.

Florida highways were clogged with traffic as coastal residents fled their homes and headed to makeshift shelters at schools and community centers across the state.

People shield windows with plywood at an oceanfront home in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew in Garden City Beach, South Carolina.ReutersPeople shield windows with plywood at an oceanfront home in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew in Garden City Beach, South Carolina.Reuters

National Hurricane Center director Rick Knabb told CNN that the destruction caused by Matthew could be widespread.

“It’s not just going to come ashore and affect a narrow zone and then move on,” he said. “It’s going to be going up the coast and could remain a major hurricane at the coast, or very close to it, the whole way up. That’s awful.”

Regardless of where it hits, the entire Sunshine State will be dealing with Matthew’s ferocity.

“Even if the direct landfall is in West Palm Beach, almost the entire coastline could feel the effects of Matthew,” Accuweather meteorologist Ed Vallee said.

And Friday’s wallop likely won’t be the last that residents in Florida and Georgia see of Matthew, which is expected to dump up to 8 inches of rain and cause dangerous storm surges throughout its path.

The storm is currently projected to loop back down the coast Sunday, clobbering the same areas it rolled through earlier in the weekend.

“The curve is going to occur somewhere east of Savannah, Georgia,” Vallee said. “There’s going to be a lot of rain right along that axis.”

Daniel Myras of Daytona Beach was busy boarding up his restaurant, the Cruisin Cafe, on Thursday.

“We’re not going to take any chances on this one,” he told the Associated Press.“I have the feeling that this one is the one that makes Daytona realize that we need to get ready for storms. A lot of people here, they laugh, and say they’ve been through storms before and they’re not worried. But I think this is the one that’s going to give us a wake-up call.”

With Post wires

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