Up and down the coast, Florida residents raced to make final preparations. Lines at gas stations stretched far beyond the pumps. Supermarkets were depleted of bottled water, bread and canned goods as people waited patiently to pay up and get out. Planters and lawn furniture were being hustled inside. Flashlights were put within easy reach, and windows and glass doors were shielded by dusty hurricane shutters.

Students, most of them too young to remember the danger of powerful hurricanes, celebrated the announcement that schools would close from along coastal counties from Miami to Jacksonville on Thursday and Friday.

— LIZETTE ALVAREZ

‘I’m Concerned About My Parents’

Jami Baker, 29, a Florida native who lives in a 36th-floor apartment in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood, a few blocks from the waters of Biscayne Bay, spent part of Wednesday stocking up on water, wine and crackers. “Everyone is in serious prep mode,” she said.

Ms. Baker’s mother is 60 years old and her father is a decade older. “I’m concerned about my parents, who are in Boca Raton, where they’ll be getting the storm much worse,” she said. “I’ll be a nervous wreck if cell service goes out and I can’t reach them.”

Ms. Baker, a public relations executive, said she had two other concerns: losing electrical power, and the fact that in her neighborhood, several high-rise building projects are underway. “I’m surrounded by cranes and construction materials that are seemingly loose. I’m sure these construction firms have storm protocol, but it’s been a while since we had a major storm.” — NICK MADIGAN

‘The Balance of Being Prepared and Being Rational Are Blurred’

Even people not directly in the storm’s path can be badly affected by its intensity, said Leanne Tellam, a 48-year-old resident of Palmetto Bay, a Miami suburb, who went through Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and what she called the “trifecta” of storms in 2005.

“Hurricane Matthew does pose a tremendous threat to the entire east coast of Florida,” she said, “if not from direct winds or storm surge, then from the psychological factors at play that cause rational people to clear shelves of bottled water in areas where the tap water is safe to drink, or to empty out gas stations. The balance of being prepared and being rational are blurred when you have a storm this big.”