Virginia Tech experts assess Hurricane Matthew damage

BLACKSBURG (WSLS 10) - Hurricane Matthew's damage is widespread across the East Coast, and weather experts said this can serve as an important lesson.

Although Matthew reached category five in its early days, it made landfall in South Carolina as only a category one; however, it claimed lives and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Virginia Tech experts said often people are too focused on the category number, which is based only on wind power, but they said even weak storms can produce deadly flooding on the coast and inland.

"There is this sense that it's only a category one or it's only a tropical storm, but for these inland flooding impacts, weak storms can also have really devastating impacts," said Virginia Tech geography professor Stephanie Zick.

Hurricane Matthew was the third most rapidly intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic.