(CNN) Hurricane Matthew pounded western Haiti Tuesday, packing powerful winds and heavy rain as it crossed the country.
“The river has overflowed all around us,” church pastor Louis St. Germain said. “It’s terrible… a total disaster.”
St. Germain, who spoke to CNN on the phone from Les Cayes, Haiti, said the storm sheared a wall off of his house and tore roofs off many buildings in the area.
And in a significant setback for emergency responders and aid relief efforts, the bridge that connected Port-au-Prince with southern Haiti collapsed Tuesday.
There are reports of communications towers being affected by downed trees and officials are worried it will hamper the emergency response.
The “extremely dangerous” storm has already killed at least three people, caused cruise ships to change course and prompted officials to declare states of emergency.
And authorities have warned that the death toll could climb.
“We’ve already seen deaths. People who were out at sea. There are people who are missing. They are people who didn’t respect the alerts.
They’ve lost their lives,” Interim Haitian President Jocelerme Privert said at a news conference.
The Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Les Anglais, Haiti, around 7 a.m. ET, according to the National Hurricane Center. By 2 p.m., the center of the storm was back at sea, churning north toward Cuba.
Forecasters say the storm, which is located about 65 miles east-southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, and moving at about 10 mph, is expected to hit eastern Cuba Tuesday afternoon.
A threat remains in Haiti even though the eye of the storm has passed. Ferocious rain and wind were already thrashing the Caribbean nation before the storm made landfall. And forecasters said Tuesday that life-threatening flash floods and mudslides were likely.
Up to 40 inches of rain could be dumped on the impoverished nation, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake that struck six years ago and a cholera outbreak after that.
Les Cayes Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortuné said Tuesday morning the storm was slamming into his city. He posted videos on social media that showed wind whipping through trees as heavy rains pelted people on the streets.
The United Nations mission in Haiti shared a photo of people wading through water in a flooded street there.
Eyewitnesses also reported streets flooding in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
In one neighborhood, a river swelled to dangerous levels, Junior Jules told CNN’s iReport. A video Jules sent to CNN showed rain-soaked residents wandering around the Crois-des-Missions bridge as rising waters rushed underneath.
“It is really, really, really bad. The water is almost over the bridge,” he said. “It’s the biggest bridge we’ve got.”
As Matthew drenched Haiti with dozens of inches of rain, Cuba, the Bahamas and the United States took steps to prepare for the storm’s arrival in the coming days.
Forecasters predict the storm will move over the southeastern and central Bahamas Tuesday evening and approach the northwestern Bahamas Wednesday evening.
