Schoolhouse built by Seahawk Cliff Avril near path of hurricane

Just days after Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril celebrated the opening of a new schoolhouse in Haiti, a powerful hurricane began moving toward one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries.

Avril's Family Foundation just opened two, brand new classrooms in Port-au-Prince.

But now, Category 4 Hurricane Matthew is on Haiti’s doorstep.

The Associated Press reports the hurricane has maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. It is expected to pass just east of Jamaica and then over or close to the southwestern tip of Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday. It is expected to hit the eastern tip of Cuba Tuesday afternoon.

“Some of us will die but I pray it won’t be a lot,” Serge Barionette in the southern town of Gressier told the AP.

The schoolhouse Avril’s foundation helped build in Port-au-Prince is just east of the Hurrican’s predicted path.

Officials with Haiti’s civil protection agency said there were roughly 1,300 emergency shelters across the country, enough to hold up to 340,000 people. Authorities broadcast warnings over the radio telling people to swiftly heed evacuation warnings, trying to counter a common tendency for people to try to stay in their homes to protect them during natural disasters.

In a brief address carried on state radio, interim President Jocelerme Privert urged Haitians to listen closely to official warnings and be ready to move.

“To those people living in houses that could collapse, it’s necessary that you leave these houses to take refuge in schools and churches,” he said.

NOAA satellite imagery shows Hurricane Matthew moving through the Caribbean Sea over the past three days.

Cox Media Group