ORMOND BEACH, Fla. - Hurricane Matthew cruised the Florida coast Friday, lashing evacuated communities, flooding St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and knocking out power to 1.1 million people. But in its unusual journey north, the storm never quite managed to make landfall, staying just off the coast as if surveying beachfront property. 

Matthew so far has been less lethal and destructive than forecasters had feared it would be - although the full extent of damage could take days to assess. Insurance companies had speculated that losses could total in the tens of billions of dollars, on the scale of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the National Weather Service had warned that damage could make some places "uninhabitable for weeks or months."

That looked less likely Friday as the storm was downgraded to Category 2 and sustained maximum winds dropped to 110 mph. Still, officials remained cautious, focusing on the threat from the storm surge as Matthew blows massive amounts of the Atlantic Ocean across sea walls, up rivers and through the dune line. Gov. Rick Scott warned that flooding could last for days. The St. Johns River, which flows through the heart of Jacksonville, reached a record flood stage Friday afternoon.

The Weather Service expected Matthew to continue hugging coastal Georgia and the Carolinas, dumping torrential rain, before atmospheric steering winds push it out to sea Sunday. An estimated 355,000 people had evacuated coastal areas of South Carolina as of late Friday.

One possible storm track suggested that Matthew could make landfall around Charleston before noon Saturday.

"Now is the time that we ask for prayer," said Gov. Nikki Haley. "We need to really say prayers not just for those in Florida and Georgia, but now it is about South Carolina."

Even with Matthew offshore, Floridians experienced the chaos that accompanies hurricanes, including exploding transformers, tree branches and debris on every roadway, roofing materials going airborne, and birds and other animals taking shelter in odd places. A stork hid in a restroom at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, The Associated Press reported. People from coastal towns poured into hotels as far away as Atlanta, having hastily packed up a few belongings as well as pets.

Florida officials attributed at least four deaths to the storm; two were medical emergencies that ambulances couldn't reach because of fierce winds, and two others were residents killed by falling trees. An elderly couple was reported in critical condition after running a generator indoors.

The storm's failure to deliver a catastrophic blow to Florida triggered an online controversy, with the Drudge Report among the media outlets pushing the notion that weather forecasters and mainstream news organizations overhype the hazards from hurricanes. But the forecasts for Matthew's size and strength were accurate, and if the damages do not match the worst-case scenarios, it will be a reminder that hurricanes remain fluky and rarely follow a script.

More than 2 million people have evacuated in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas since midweek. President Barack Obama urged residents in those states to listen to local officials: "Do not be a holdout here because we can always replace property, but we can't replace lives," he said. The president declared emergencies in all four states.

Other hurricanes have more or less followed the Florida coast, including Hazel in 1954, David in 1979 and Floyd in 1999. But none came so close and then so faithfully traced the state's outline.

Matthew was a Category 5 hurricane in the southern Caribbean and still a Category 4 storm when it slammed into Haiti's westernmost region earlier this week. Officials have said more than 300 Haitians died in the storm, but the figure is certain to climb once rescue workers are able to reach cutoff areas.

The hurricane then rolled across the Bahamas and neared South Florida, still ranked a Category 3 storm with winds more than 120 mph early Friday. But a couple of fortuitous wobbles kept the storm from striking land directly, and it instead went on its trek up the coast.

The center of the storm barely missed Cape Canaveral and did no significant damage to the nation's most important launch infrastructure for civilian and military spacecraft.

The Florida coast changes dramatically from south to north. There are still barriers islands - spits of land, often not much more than sandbars, backed by the Intracoastal Waterway - and the beaches are wide and flat, sloping gently and gradually, creating long stretches of shallow water that can be pushed easily by tropical winds. This made the coast around Daytona Beach, St. Augustine and Jacksonville vulnerable to storm surge. Worst of all, Matthew arrived at high tide, around midday Friday.

Hurricane-force winds (74 mph or higher) extended 60 miles from the storm's center. A wind gust of 68 mph was reported in Daytona Beach, while gusts topping 100 mph were recorded in northern Brevard County, according to the National Weather Service. By the afternoon, gusts of around 80 mph were registered in Flagler Beach and St. Augustine.

Flash-flood warnings in the Jacksonville area were announced through Friday evening.

Despite "mandatory" evacuation orders, countless people rode out the storm, including Keith Kokesh of Ormond Beach, just north of Daytona Beach, who feared that someone would loot his home if he fled the storm.

"My son has every video game system there is, and I don't want to lose it," Kokesh said.

Ormond Beach resident Lynn Kearns stayed put even when a neighbor's pine tree landed on her roof. She thought evacuation would be too difficult for her mother and two dogs. She boarded up her windows and hoped that her street wouldn't flood.

The storm ripped trees and light posts from the ground and toppled signs. It turned parks into ponds, and broken tree limbs littered yards and streets. The city's entire water storage "has been depleted," according to a news release that noted water main breaks and water wells going out of service.

Local police were blocking access to bridges leading to the city's barrier island, leaving Shari Lessmiller and her family stuck on the other side.

"We're trying to get home," Lessmiller said. "If we had a boat, we could take it over."

Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen said he was thankful that Matthew had stayed roughly 30 miles off the beach: "I don't think 30 miles has ever meant so much to a community." He said officials would assess damage to see when they could allow evacuated residents to return to their homes. In the meantime, the county had a curfew imposed that would extend until 7 a.m. Saturday.

Another hour by car up the road, St. Augustine, founded in 1565, flooded badly as bay water overtopped a sea wall next to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, the 16th-century Spanish fort. Video shared on social media showed people stranded in a hotel as water rushed past the front steps.

As the outer bands of Matthew moved up the coast to Jacksonville, the St. Johns River, normally placid, became violently choppy and rapidly reached flood stage. A television crew captured the heavy, violent surf breaking through the dunes at Jacksonville Beach, the ocean water racing along narrow streets between high-rise condominiums.

Evacuations continued Friday up the coast in Georgia and South Carolina. Hotels have filled up fast.

"We're now turning to campgrounds to look for space and starting to look at Alabama," said Jim Sprouse of the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association.

In Moultrie, Georgia, a Red Cross shelter housed 118 evacuees, almost all of whom came from Sea Island, about 160 miles east. Most of the evacuees were interns from Jamaica working for the Sea Island Co.

"I just hope I got a home to go back to," staff member Jeff Herrington said. "This is a powerful, scary storm."

At Beaufort Memorial Hospital, situated on a narrow strip of land in South Carolina, 62 patients were evacuated Friday morning to communities far inland. The hospital was among the more than 170 medical facilities in the state that sat empty as Hurricane Matthew approached.

Medical University Hospital in Charleston said it had no plans of evacuating its staff or 550 patients - despite being in an area expected to experience heavy flooding.

Law-enforcement personnel in Charleston and Berkeley counties went door-to-door in vulnerable neighborhoods, notifying residents that their time to leave was running out.

"We flood under a major rain. We don't know exactly how high the waters are going to get, but you need to be safe," North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said Friday morning.

As storm projections worsened for the South Carolina coast, additional curfews were announced for Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties beginning Friday evening.

"Now is the time, if you are not safe in your home, this is your opportunity," warned David Chinnis, chairman of the Dorchester County Council. "Get out."

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Achenbach reported from Washington. The Washington Post's Mark Berman, Angela Fritz and Jason Samenow in Washington; Lacey McLaughlin in Daytona Beach, Fla.; Lori Rozsa in Palm Beach, Fla.; Dustin Waters in Charleston, S.C.; Susan Cooper Eastman in Jacksonville, Fla.; Sharon Dunten in Brunswick, Ga.; Camille Pendley in Atlanta; Kirk Ross in Raleigh, N.C.; Francisco Alvarado in Miami; and Tal Abbady in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., contributed to this report.