Hours before Hurricane Matthew was coming ashore in Haiti on Tuesday, flooding was already reported Monday — a warning sign of what history tells us could be another devastating episode for the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, NBC News reported.

Matthew was a Category 4 hurricane late Monday afternoon, making it the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, stronger even than the three hurricanes — Gustav, Hanna and Ike — that killed more than 800 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes in 2008.

"This is likely to be a humanitarian disaster," said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "I think very bad things are coming up here for Haiti over the next 24 to 36 hours."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange continued on Tuesday to promise a "significant" reveal of information somehow related to the U.S. presidential race before the November election but nothing was revealed so far, NBC News reported. 

"We are going to need an army to defend us from the pressure that is already starting to arise," Assange said via video link in an event timed to coincide with the group's 10-year anniversary.

He said WikiLeaks aimed to publish previously unreleased material weekly for the next 10 weeks, but did not say exactly what it would be.

The organization also declined to say whether any upcoming releases would involve the Republicans. In August, Assange also said he was planning to release "significant" information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by six percentage points according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Poll.

The Democratic candidate leads Trump 46 percent to 40 percent. In a two way general-election match-up, Clinton leads Trump 50 percent to 44 percent; a margin that has remained essentially unchanged in the last week, following the first presidential debate on Sept. 26. 

Among likely women voters, who historically make up a larger share of the electorate, 52 percent say they support Clinton, while 34 percent say they support Trump.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson fell one percentage point since last week while Jill Stein, the Green party candidate, has remained at 3 percent.

The poll was conducted online Sept. 26 through Oct. 2, 2016, among likely voters.

Two Raiders fans from the tri-state -- including one who is a firefighter -- were charged with assault after authorities said they critically injured a man at a Baltimore Ravens game over the weekend. 

Susan Bauer told WBAL in Baltimore that her 55-year-old brother Joseph Bauer was attending the game with his wife Sunday when he got into an argument with a group of Raiders fans at M&T Bank Stadium. 

Authorities said that the two attackers, 28-year-old Scott Smith and 31-year-old Andrew Nappi, got angry when the siblings let a woman go in front of them at a concssion stand. 

""They started arguing with him and someone hit my brother in the head from behind," Bauer told WBAL. "He was immediately unconscious and hit the pavement."

She said her brother is on life support and cannot breathe on his own. But he was able to give doctors a thumbs up and could recover from his wounds.

Smith, a Mount Vernon firefighter, and Nappi, of Eastchester, were both charged with assault. Smith was suspended from the fire department indefinitely after the attack. 

It is unclear whether either man has an attorney, and attempts to contact Smith or Nappi at their homes were unsuccessful. 

The Ravens said in a statement that their sympathies go out to Joseph Bauer and his family.

If it feels like fees are climbing every time you stop at an ATM, you may be on to something.

ATM fees have reached a record high for the 10th year in a row, according to Bankrate.com's 19th annual checking survey. The average cost for using an out-of-network ATM has increased to $4.57.

The fees are made up of a surcharge fee from the ATM owner on a non-customer and a fee from the account holder's bank for using another bank's ATM. The ATM surcharge rose 2 cents this year, from $2.88 to $2.90. Fees charged by a customer's own bank rose 1.8 percent to $1.67.

“With ATM fees now at an average of $4.57, an unplanned stop at the ATM for $20 will cost nearly 23 percent in fees. A little advanced planning when making withdrawals can add up to big savings for consumers in the long run,” said Bankrate.com’s chief financial analyst, Greg McBride, in a statement.

Bankrate found the highest average ATM fee in Phoenix, at $5.07. The lowest was in San Francisco, at $3.90.

On the other hand, overdraft fees have fallen, breaking a 17-year streak of highs. The average overdraft fee fell from $33.07 to $33.04. Bankrate found that the most common overdraft fee is $35.

The highest average overdraft fees found by Bankrate are in Philadelphia, where they're $35.20. Just as it boasts the lowest ATM fee, San Francisco has the lowest average overdraft fee, $30.25.

The survey also found that the number of free, non-interest checking accounts increased this year, for the first time since 2009. Interest checking accounts also increased.

U.S. military veterans are rallying outside Trump Tower in New York City after Donald Trump seemed to suggest that veterans returning from war with post traumatic stress disorder are not as strong as others. 

A small group of veterans turned out early Tuesday morning at the Fifth Avenue tower where the Republican presidential candidate has a residence and office. They started by sharing their personal stories of being wounded in combat, suffering from nightmares and losing battle colleagues to suicide.

Stressing the importance of treatment, some held signs that read: #VETS AGAINST TRUMP; one held a banner that read: Sacrifice is NOT weakness.

Trump made the controversial comments about PTSD while speaking to a group of retired military supporters during the Retired American Warriors conference in Herndon, Virginia, on Monday.

"When people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it," he said.

Trump's statement came during questions about veterans and suicide and the care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

It prompted a quick response on social media and a statement from Jon Soltz, an Iraq War veteran and the chairman of VoteVets.org.

"These comments, as horrible as they are, are not shocking," he said. "We're talking about a person, in Trump, who believes that POWs aren't real heroes, and that he's made sacrifices akin to Gold Star Families who lost their loved ones in war. The constant disrespect Donald Trump shows towards our veterans and service members is sickening, and completely and totally disqualifying."

Hillary Clinton's campaign said in a statement: "It’s no surprise that someone who attacked a Gold Star family, who insulted prisoners of war, and who dismissed the impact of IED attacks on soldiers in armored vehicles would diminish the suffering some veterans face after serving our country."

But one of Trump's advisers, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, said Trump's words had been taken out of context. 

"Mr. Trump was highlighting the challenges veterans face when returning home after serving their country," Flynn said. "He has always respected the service and sacrifice of our military men and women—proposing reforms to Veteran Affairs to adequately address the various issues veterans face when they return home."

And the veteran who asked the question, former Marine Staff Sgt. Chad Robichaux, also defended Trump.

"I think it's sickening that anyone would twist Mr. Trump's comments to me in order to pursue a political agenda," said Robichaux, president and founder of Mighty Oaks Warrior Programs. "I took his comments to be thoughtful and understanding of the struggles many veterans have, and I believe he is committed to helping them."

More than three dozen people were displaced after a gas explosion leveled two multifamily homes, seriously damaged a third and affected at least a dozen other dwellings, fire officials said.

Paterson Fire Chief Michael Postorino said that no tenants or residents in surrounding homes were hurt in the blast that "flattened" 16 and 18 Goshen Avenue shortly before 9:24 a.m.

But 38 people were either displaced or left homeless by the blast, and 15 firefighters were evaluated at hospitals for ruptured ear drums and other minor injuries.

Postorino said the department got several calls from homeowners in the area who reported smelling gas as they got ready for the day at about 9 a.m.

When they arrived, crews heard hissing coming from the gas source and they worked quickly to clear 11 residents from the two homes and other dwellings throughout the area before the explosion. 

"They did what they were trained to do," he said. "They got everyone out."

Chopper 4 footage from after the blast showed utility crews and firefighters crowding around the the pile of rubble left behind from the blast. Windows, shards of wood and shingles were strewn about the block, covering cars, the sidewalk and street dozens of feet from the two homes.

The homes on either side of the blast also appear to have some damage. Postorino said that one of the homes had serious structural damage, and at least a dozen others nearby had everything from blown-out windows to damage from flying debris.

Postorino said that several firefighters sustained minor injuries battling the blaze after the blast.

He said that once the fire is fully extinguished excavation work will begin, and firefighters will look to see if anyone was trapped in the rubble.

He said the department believes all tenants in the home are accounted for but will search the wreckage to verify that assertion. Earlier on Tuesday, city councilman Ken Martin said that one person was thought to be unaccounted for. 

Several residents nearby told NBC 4 New York they smelled gas before the blast, and several said they felt shaking when the homes exploded. Store owner Charlie Hayek said that he initially thought a car exploded but was shocked when he saw the homes reduced to rubble. 

"We shook," Hayek said. 'We shook, and we knew it wasn't a car accident."

Hayek added that the firefighters' quick actions likely saved lives.

"If it happened 10 minutes before it would have been a lot worse," he said.

Gas service and power were both shut off after the blast, both Postorino and PSE&G said in a statement. 

The cause of the leak that sparked the blast wasn't immediately clear.

The blast comes a week after house explosion in the Bronx where a FDNY battallion chief was killed by falling debris. Authorities said the Bronx blast might have been caused by a tampered gas main.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the explosion.

Ann Givens contributed to this report.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated as part of coverage of Hurricane Matthew.

The last time southern Florida faced down a hurricane's full wrath was more than a decade ago.

Since then the state has grown by at least 2.5 million people. Many newcomers may be unprepared for the punishing winds and surges of water that come with a direct hit, and not used to boarding up their windows or evacuating their homes.

That worries professional hurricane watchers.

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“There are going to be people who have moved to the state and don’t know what to do, how well to prepare for a hurricane,” said David Nolan, the chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

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Others who experienced a hurricane may have forgotten how to prepare for one or become complacent, he said.

While Hurricane Hermine struck North Florida earlier this year, the last hurricane to hit southern Florida was Wilma in 2005. It killed 25 people, left most of South Florida without power and cut a broad swath of damage in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Hurricane Matthew made landfall in Haiti on Tuesday morning and is heading toward Cuba and the southeastern coast of Florida. The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for South Florida late Tuesday morning. 

Gov. Rick Scott warned residents to take the storm seriously, adding "we cannot rule out a direct hit."

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most destructive for the United States, largely because of Hurricane Katrina two months earlier, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. Katrina alone caused $151 billion in damage and killed 1,833. In all, seven named storms made landfall in the United States during 2005, and eight the year before.

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Why was there a flurry of storms in Florida and then none?

“I don’t think anyone can give a specific answer to that,” Nolan said. “Hurricane activity has been reduced a lot in the last 10 years.”

In addition, in the last few years, the jet stream has dipped over the East Coast, bringing cold and stormy winters — a weather pattern that can draw storms such as Sandy up to the Northeast and away from Florida, he said.

Hurricanes are very unusual, so 10 years without one is not that odd, he said. Florida had a long period of little hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s until Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, destroying homes and downing power lines from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys. Five thousand people were left homeless.

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Elliott Stares, 42, is among the newcomers to Florida. Originally from the United Kingdom, the public relations consultant with his own firm moved to South Beach 14 years ago. He and his wife are creating a "go bag" for an emergency evacuation from their Miami neighborhood.

"Since I've been here, I've been lucky enough not to experience a direct hit like Andrew," said Stares, who became a citizen in March.

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If an evacuation is mandatory and there is enough time, they would try to reach his wife's parents in Dallas, he said.

The condominium complex where he lives has hurricane-proof windows so he feels it is "pretty well battened" for a mild storm.

"But anything from 3 and above, based on the authorities' advice on evacuating, then we would oblige," he said. 

The number of hurricanes predicted for the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season called for a near-normal season with 10 to 16 named storms, with four to eight hurricanes and one to four "major" ones.

Officials cautioned in 2015 that even a below-normal season can still be devastating and pointed to 1992, when only seven named storms formed but the first was Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane. Category 5 storms — the most powerful classification — have sustained wind speeds on 157 miles per hour or more and cause catastrophic damage.

Because of Andrew, Miami-Dade County has some of the toughest building codes in the country, particularly for wind, said Brian Haus, professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School. But the state’s housing is a mix of old and new, and many of the coastal areas were built before there were strong storm surge codes, he said.

“So many coastal buildings in the older areas are not elevated,” he said. “They need to be.”

Late in 2014, the school opened a new research complex that includes a hurricane wind-wave tank that can generate Category 5 hurricane-force winds. Researchers are trying to get better data on the effects of wind and water surges, not only on individual buildings but on neighboring structures as well. Driven by intense winds, the seawater exerts extreme force on buildings, he said.

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During the 2015 hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center introduced a new graphic specifically for storm surges in addition to one for wind speeds. The center will issue separate storm surge watches and warnings separate from the hurricane watches and warnings it has traditionally broadcast. A watch is defined as the possibility of life-threatening flooding within 48 hours; a warning, within 36 hours.

The graphic complements a potential storm surge flooding map, released during Hurricane Arthur in 2014, which shows where inundation could occur and how high above group the water could potentially reach.

A surge of seawater is often the greatest threat. It can occur at different times and places than a hurricane’s winds and well inland from the coast and might require evacuation.

Hurricane Ike — which devastated the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas and caused widespread damage in other areas of southeastern Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas in 2008 — was the impetus for the emphasis on storm surges, said Jamie Rhome, the leader of the National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit.

More recently Hurricane Sandy focused the public’s attention on the damage that could result. Though only a Category 1 when it made landfall in southern New Jersey in 2012, with sustained winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour, Sandy was a massive storm that did $67 billion in damage from flooding, according to NOAA. The storm surge — the rising seawater that results from wind and changes in atmospheric pressure — pushed water inland.

Recent research shows that storm surges are the primary killers during hurricanes, but polling indicates that the public believes otherwise, Rhome said.

“People really only think wind when they hear hurricane, they’re primarily focused on wind, yet it’s water that’s resulting in the largest loss of life,” he said. “That disconnect is what we’re really seeking to tackle with these new maps.”

As far as Florida’s hurricane-free streak?

“I guarantee you that remarkable streak is going to end,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “And we have to go into 2015 assuming that it’s going to end this year.”

New Hampshire's U.S. Senate candidates faced off Monday in the first televised debate of the hotly-contested campaign. And two of the most memorable exchanges involved their parties' respective presidential nominees.

Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte and Democratic challenger Gov. Maggie Hassan touched on a wide range of topics, including Super PACs, ISIS, the state's opioid crisis and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's tax returns.

One of the most noteworthy moments came when Ayotte was asked if she would tell a child to look up to Trump as a role model.

"I think that certainly there are many role models that we have and I believe he can serve as president and so, absolutely, I would do that," she said.

But less than three hours after the debate had ended, Ayotte issued a statement saying that she "misspoke" when asked about Trump.

"While I would hope all of our children would aspire to be president, neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton have set a good example and I wouldn't hold up either of them as role models for my kids."

Ayotte did say later in the debate that Trump should release his tax returns. She also pointed out that while she is voting for Trump, she has stood up to him "on multiple occasions" in the past and argued that Hassan "is lock-step with Secretary Clinton."

But the damage may have already been done. The Hassan campaign issued a release of its own Monday night, including some of the numerous tweets reacting negatively to Ayotte's "absolutely" comment. The campaign has already scheduled a Tuesday morning media call in an effort to focus even more attention on the remarks.

Hassan was also asked to defend her party's nominee on Monday, and said she finds Hillary Clinton to be "honest and trustworthy," after three times failing to answer that question in a previous interview. "I certainly didn't give my best answer," she acknowledged. She added that national security and foreign policy experts in the GOP also find Clinton more qualified than Trump.

"What I find very concerning is that at a time when our country faces so many evolving national security threats that my opponent is supporting Donald Trump, who members of her own party say poses an absolute danger to our country's vital interests," Hassan said.

The Ayotte-Hassan race is seen as one of the tightest Senate races in the country. Tens of millions of dollars have flooded the airwaves as the two sides fight for ground in the key swing state.

Monday's Senate debate at New England College was the first of two debates being aired by necn this week. The governor's debate between Republican Chris Sununu and Democrat Colin Van Ostern will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. The debates are co-sponsored by the Concord Monitor, WGIR-AM 610, WKXL-AM 1450 and New England College.

Below is some of the reaction to Monday's Senate debate on Twitter:

White House officials told NBC News they are considering escalating United States involvement in Syria's civil war as thousands of women and children die in Aleppo. 

These considerations include unspecified "actions…that would further underscore the consequences of [Russia] not coming back to the negotiating table," the officials said.

The hope for a diplomatic solution to the yearslong conflict went out the window after Secretary of State John Kerry's cease-fire agreement with Russia never worked out. The U.S. suspended talks with Russia on Monday.

And as fear for the city of Aleppo looms, audio recording released over the weekend showed Kerry saying that he's argued unsuccessfully for military action over the conflict.

While Donald Trump touts himself as a business genius, tax experts say that his experiences suggest otherwise, according to NBC News.

Following the New York Times' release of pages from Trump's 1995 tax filings that show close to $916 million in losses, Trump attempted to explain the documents. He said they were evidence of his "talent," "skill, dedication and sheer grit." 

He said the losses are his "net operating loss," or NOL. NOL can cancel out an individual's income tax during a given year. NYU tax law professor Dan Shaviro said that the NOL loophole isn't special to Trump - it's something any business owner would use.

Shaviro added that a loss of over $900 million is "unusual."

Many likely voters say they don't know enough about both vice presidential candidates to have positive or negative thoughts about them going into Tuesday night's debate, according to a new NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.

The poll found that 40 percent of likely voters said they didn't know enough about Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, while 33 percent said they didn't know enough about Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

Of those surveyed, 56 percent of Democrats and those who tend to lean toward Democrats with an impression of Kaine said it is favorable. Sixty-six percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners said they have a favorable impression of Pence.

Both candidates will seek to give themselves a greater presence among voters during tonight's debate.

The American public got to know Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence during their first and only vice presidential debate at Longwood University Tuesday night.

The candidates are largely unknown to voters, according to the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll, and they went head-to-head on taxes, Homeland Security, education, healthcare, Syria and the economy.

At the top of the debate, Pence incorrectly thanked Norwood University for hosting the debate — it was held at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. The gaffe began trending on Twitter. 

Kaine, the Democratic candidate, spent a good deal of his time knocking Pence and the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, for the positions they've staked in the long campaign.

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"If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, you've got to go back to fifth grade civics class," Kaine said, referring to Pence unfavorably comparing President Baracak Obama with Vladimir Putin.

Pence hit back hard, saying that Kaine and his running mate, Hillary Clinton, have made their campaign "an avalanche of insults." 

Trump was live-tweeting throughout the debate; Clinton's account was active as well, though the candidate herself wasn't tweeting.

Here's some of the top tweets in reaction to the vice presidential debate.  

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