Hurricane Matthew has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, the US National Hurricane Center says.
The storm's maximum sustained winds had slowed to 175km/h, the centre said in its advisory released at 5pm local time on Friday.
The centre also said Matthew had moved to about 215km south of Savannah, Georgia, and continued to move at a speed of 19km/h.
Although Matthew is expected to weaken further over the next 48 hours, forecasters believe it will remain a hurricane until it begins to move away from the south-eastern United States on Sunday.
Earlier in the week, poor rural communities were ravaged by Hurricane Matthew, the death toll surging to at least 842 people, as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm.
Matthew smashed through the tip of Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 233km/h winds and torrential rain.
Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.
Governor Scott has called on some 1.5 million people in coastal areas of Florida to evacuate and he continued to urge people to move away from danger on Friday.
As of Friday morning, about 22,000 people were in Florida shelters and more had moved inland or to the state's west coast, Scott said. Georgia and South Carolina had also opened dozens of shelters for evacuees.
DPA / Reuters
