Hurricane Matthew: A look back

Hurricane Matthew ripped into Haiti on Oct. 4, 2016, as a Category 4 storm, bringing with it brutal 143-mph sustained winds, as well as flooding and mudslides. Traveling north, it raged off the coasts of Florida and Georgia before making landfall. By the time it hit the U.S. in South Carolina Oct. 8, it had been downgraded to a Category 1 storm.

Meanwhile, another storm was brewing. On Oct. 7, a month before the presidential election, three major news events threw the campaign into chaos: the Obama administration released a historic joint statement concluding the Russian government was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee; the Washington Post published the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that caught Donald Trump bragging about assaulting women; and WikiLeaks dumped its trove of Hillary Clinton campaign emails.

So while Matthew led the morning newscasts, and both candidates were briefed on its imminent landfall, by midafternoon the damage brought by the revelations in the news was the wreckage the campaigns were most focused on. (Gabby Kaufman/Yahoo News)

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