I was taught from my youth that all floods, storms, and earthquakes are acts of God.  Now that I have grown up and am able to investigate, analyze, and come to my own conclusion about things, I am still persuaded that all weather patterns and occurrences are under the sovereign oversight of God.  Simply stated, this means that the Almighty has absolute control over all the occurrences and patterns of the weather.  This is the case when it comes to rain, floods, storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, and any other natural event, regardless of how sudden, unpredictable, and even catastrophic it might be.
So based upon my unshakeable belief in the sovereignty of God, I wholeheartedly believe that the wind and rain unleashed by Hurricane Matthew upon our community and region was an act of God.  However, I am cautious and reluctant to accuse or lay blame to God for the devastation that was awful, and in many cases, a debilitating aftermath of the storm.
I want to go back in time and reference another storm that wreaked havoc upon an entire region, especially one city in particular.  That storm was Hurricane Katrina and the city was New Orleans.  Katrina was called the storm of the century as far as the loss of lives and property damage was concerned that was in the billions of dollars.  Was the aftermath and devastation of Katrina to the city of New Orleans an act of God or an act of negligence by man to prepare for the inevitable?  Was it brought about by those who founded and geographically situated the city in a spot below sea level?  Was the great loss of life and property damage that was the grave consequence of Hurricane Katrina really an act of God or a failure of the city of New Orleans, state of Louisiana, and Army Corp of engineers’ failure to repair, or better yet, build a bigger and better levee system to protect the city from the inevitable?  If the answer to these questions is yes, as many experts whose job it is to know about these matters have said, Hurricane Katrina, although it was an act of God who is sovereign over the weather, was not the cause of the devastation.  The blame lies squarely with man and his negligence.  This has been the case for many of the historical catastrophes that were unleashed upon humanity by the weather and other natural disasters like hurricanes, volcanoes, and floods.  In many of these occurrences that caused the loss of lives and property damage, the devastation could have been minimized, if not altogether prevented, if people would have not tempted fate by building in the wrong spots in low land areas or too close to the shores of seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.  
In A.D. 79, a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius completely destroyed two cities southeast of Naples, Italy named Pompeii and Herculaneum, along with neighboring Stabiae.  The citizens of these ancient cities were not as complacent and complicit in their destruction as are many today who, because of the advancement of scientific technology’s ability to forecast things like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods to an amazing degree of accuracy, continue to live in areas that are destined to eventually experience volcanic eruptions, floods, and destructive earthquakes.  They have been warned and are living on either borrowed time or a powder keg.  When the inevitable finally happens one day, and it will, can we truthfully call their loss and devastation an act of God or an act of human defiance and foolishness?  
There are some houses along the route I take from the Riverdale Community to downtown Dillon that were completely inundated by the rise of the river that they live near in a low land area not far from the river.  The waters were so high that their cars were completely submerged and the level of the waters reached almost to the top of the windows of their homes.  I know their houses suffered some structural damage, as well as the loss of most, if not all, of the contents within.  These homes were built on extremely low land areas in close proximity to a tributary of the Pee Dee River.  Fortuitously, they had escaped the bullet of ruin caused by the cresting of the river for many years.  Ultimately, their luck failed and they have to reap the grave consequences of flirting with fate too long.  Can we again honestly conclude that what came upon them, due to the torrential rains that Hurricane Matthew unleashed upon the river and thereby causing it to crest and overflow, was an act of God?  In all empathy to their loss and the inconvenience that they have to endure while they are assessing the flood damage and are perhaps in the recovery state, their general loss was not an act of God, but an act of human negligence and refusal to foresee and prepare for the inevitable.  
As often is my custom, I want to conclude with two very relevant passages that I hope that none will believe that I am using out of context.  Each is a wise saying from, arguably, the wisest man who ever lived, other than Jesus Christ Himself (see John 7:46):
A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.  Proverbs 22:3

“…time and chance happen to them all.”  (Ecclesiastes 9:11)