Hurricane Matthew is sending more people to the Scenic City for safety

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- As Hurricane Matthew continues to wreak havoc, more and more people are fleeing to the Scenic City for safety.

Hotel rooms are filling up fast, and most of those who’ve already evacuated, say they’ve had to travel hours, from places like Savannah, and Hilton Head, just to find a vacancy for the night.

“So they’re wanting and as much of your personal stuff as you can to get out of South Carolina, that area, as quickly as possible, just to be on the safe side.”

Steven Hensley says he and his fiancé were staying in a hotel room, waiting on a deal to close on their new house in Hilton Head, when they received a message.

“We got the note on the door saying we had to evacuate the building by three o’clock the next evening, because of the hurricane coming through.”

Of course Hensley isn’t the only one who was told to evacuate. Thousands have had to leave their homes behind, and due to the high number of evacuations, hotel rooms in our area filling up fast.

“We had to drive seven–over seven hours to get here. This is the closest one we could find.”

“We went to probably, I don’t know, eight or nine hotels last night, and called and there’s just no vacancies anywhere.”

Weather officials say Hurricane Matthew has already brushed parts of Florida’s northeast coast with high winds and storm surge flooding, and is expected to bring  potentially serious rainfall flooding into Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina through at least Saturday night.

“If they didn’t take it more serious this time, maybe next time they probably will.”

“I’m worried about everything right now, we’re closing a deal on a house the 25th or the 27th, and now we don’t know if the house is even going to be there when we get there or not. So it all depends on what the storm does.”