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Melbourne Resident On Matthew: "We Got Lucky"

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MELBOURNE (CBSMiami) -- Longtime Melbourne resident Hank Laneuville described what Hurricane Matthew sounded like in his Ballard Park home early Friday morning.

"It sounded like a train going through," Laneville said.

The eye of Hurricane Matthew passed less than 50 miles off the Melbourne coast around 3:30 am. The National Weather Service said they clocked a wind gust at nearby Satellite Beach at 88 miles per hour. Laneuville expected the worst.

"Trees and everything down," he said.

Hurricane Matthew brought down a few trees in his neighborhood but nothing like he and other residents feared. Fred Lang has lived in his home for 40 years.

"The roof was the main concern," Lang said. "You're all shuttered in there in the middle of the night and the roof comes off. What do you do?"

Fortunately, he didn't find out. His roof is intact.

There is minor damage scattered throughout Melbourne. CBS 4 cameras saw traffic lights dangling and some power lines down. A few street signs were toppled and there were trees laying in the road.

A large sign at a GMC car dealership got ripped apart and was scattered in the roadway. A couple of metal awnings crumpled and there was some low level street flooding.

For the most part, however, it appeared the majority of the mainland escaped major damage.

Sheriff's deputies closed the causeways Friday morning as state transportation officials went over to assess the barrier islands.

The big concern is power.

"If we can keep the power on, I think we'll be fine," said John Moschner, the managing group president at an assisted living facility.

More than half of Brevard County was without power Friday morning, about 174,000 customers. People are expecting to be without power possibly for a while but despite that Hank Laneuville summed up Hurricane Matthew's affect in two words.

"We're lucky," he said.

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