FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Matthew’s slog toward the East Coast has government officials worried about complacency, especially in South Florida, which hasn’t seen a major hurricane in 11 years.

South Carolina’s governor said she would issue an evacuation order today so that 1 million people would have time to leave the coast, and residents up and down the eastern seaboard flocked to hardware stores, grocery aisles and gas stations to prepare for the powerful storm.

A dangerous Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 125 mph, Matthew was bearing down on the southern Bahamas early today amid forecasters’ predictions it would be very near Florida’s Atlantic coast by Thursday evening. Already the hurricane was spreading high winds, heavy rain and a dangerous storm surge ahead of it on its approach to the Bahamas.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Matthew — recently a Category 4 storm and at one brief point a fierce Category 5 — will remain a powerful storm at least through Thursday night. It added that while maximum winds decreased slightly in recent hours, the fluctuation in intensity was expected and some slight strengthening is forecast in coming days.

Officials hope to avoid a repeat of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina, which caused major damage to South Florida in 2005, and Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, which leveled much of the city of Homestead in 1992.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican, said he wants assurances that the federal, state and local governments are working together.

Governors in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina declared states of emergency, and the White House said President Barack Obama canceled campaign and health care events in Florida today.

Hurricane Hermine became the first to strike Florida since Wilma in 2005 when it hit the eastern Panhandle as a Category 1 storm, causing one death, storm surge damage and downed trees and power lines. That 11-year lull between storms hitting Florida was the longest on record.