Hurricane Matthew: The problem with over 100 mph winds

Hurricane Matthew presently is at a sustained Category 4 at 140 mph constant winds. Gusts could be to 165 miles per hour also in the storm. So far, just in Haiti over 100 people have died from this storm.

So, my concern is people who haven't yet experienced 100 mph winds or higher.

I have experienced over 100 mph winds twice in my life and both times I was mountain climbing near peaks (almost summiting) mountains 11,000 feet to over 14,000 feet here in the U.S.

At this altitude 100 mph winds are not unusual because there is no resistance at that altitude to how fast winds might want to go. There are no buildings or trees at all, just the very few summits of mountains and that's all.

First of all 100 plus mile and hour winds are almost never constant which means you aren't going to be able to stand up much. You might do a 45 degree lean into one so you don't just blow away but then it will change and you likely are then going to fall down and get injured (depending upon the surface of the ground around you).

So, don't think you can walk around in 100 mph or over winds at all. You can't. You might be able to crawl around in lower 100 mile per hour winds but then you are vulnerable to projectiles like pieces of buildings, signs, branches rocks, dirt or water flying through the air at this speed. Also, Ice or water can be painful and even put your eye or eyes out at this speed along with dirt, twigs, branches etc.

So, just being caught out in this level of wind may blind you or maim you or kill you.

I was okay because the first time it was blowing ice and it was ripping the skin off my face but luckily before I was bleeding too much I had plastic to slide down the mountain on so I wrapped it around my head but the noise of the ice hitting the plastic was deafening. I eventually was having such an awful time at the summit that I decided to just slide down a steep face of the summit on my piece of plastic and get out of the wind before I died. Because at this point I was alone with no one to rescue me and this was before cell phones around Winter 1970 at this point and I was at most 22 and didn't see any reason to die there at the time.