Updated 12:45 p.m.
Pope Francis is urging prayers for victims of Hurricane Dorian , saying they're suffering from the loss of their homes and their lives.
Francis made the appeal in brief remarks to journalists travelling aboard the papal plane to Mozambique on Wednesday at the start of a weeklong, three-nation visit to southern Africa.
Francis urged the journalists to pray for all those in the Bahamas, which suffered the most powerful storm in its history, with 185 mph winds and torrential rains that flooded homes, hospitals and airports and made roads impassable.
In the United States, President Donald Trump is expressing some relief regarding Hurricane Dorian's impact on Florida, saying "we got lucky in Florida."
Still, his administration is bracing for significant amounts of rain and storm surge as the hurricane makes its way up the Atlantic coast.
Trump is meeting in the Oval Office with his chief of staff and leaders at the Department of Homeland Security to get the latest information about the hurricane.
The storm's maximum sustained winds Wednesday remain near 105 mph, making it a Category 2 hurricane.
At least seven deaths have been reported in the Bahamas, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.
Trump says the United States is providing humanitarian support to the Bahamas.
Updated noon
North Carolina emergency officials are reporting the first death in the state related to Hurricane Dorian .
Gov. Roy Cooper said Wednesday that an 85-year-old man from Columbus County died from injuries when he fell off a ladder as he was trying to prepare his home for the approaching storm. The state emergency operations center didn't have the man's name, but a spokesman said he died Monday at a hospital in nearby Fayetteville.
Cooper warned the public at a news conference about the threat of flash flooding, storm surge and more than a foot of rainfall as Dorian arrives Thursday along the southeastern coast. The governor already has ordered evacuations on the state's fragile barrier islands.
At least seven deaths have been reported in the Bahamas from Dorian, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.
Updated 11:00 a.m.
Hurricane and storm surge warnings are being extended as Hurricane Dorian crawls up a path parallel to the U.S. East Coast.
A storm surge warning is now in effect from north of Port Canaveral, Florida, up to the North Carolina-Virginia border.
Read: What Is Storm Surge and What Makes It Dangerous?
The storm's maximum sustained winds Wednesday remain near 105 mph, making it a Category 2 hurricane. Dorian is centered about 90 miles east-northeast of Daytona Beach, Florida, and is moving north-northwest near 9 mph.
At least seven deaths have been reported in the Bahamas from Dorian, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.
Updated 8:51 a.m.
Hurricane Dorian's center is moving parallel to Florida's northeastern coast as it churns north-northwestward in the Atlantic.
The storm's maximum sustained winds Wednesday morning are near 105 mph, making it a Category 2 storm. High winds are expected to reach North Carolina overnight and in to Thursday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center
Dorian is centered about 95 miles east-northeast of Daytona Beach, Florida, and is moving about 8 mph.
At least seven deaths have been reported in the Bahamas from Dorian, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.
Sea turtle nests along many of Florida's beaches are in danger of being washed out to sea as Hurricane Dorian sideswipes the Atlantic Coast.
Conservation officials urge the public not to interfere by trying to rescue any stranded hatchlings or disturbing buried nests.
Volusia County's sea turtle habitat conservation plan manager Jennifer Winters tells the Orlando Sentinel "there's not a lot" that can be done. She says once eggs get pulled from the sand, "they're not going to make it."
She says on Friday 397 sea turtle nests were recorded on Volusia County beaches. Since Saturday, 40 nests were washed out and more are expected as Dorian passes by.
Canaveral National Seashore spokeswoman Laura Henning says before closing Saturday for the storm, 12,000 nests were counted.
While Hurricane Dorian moves up the coast, two other named storms are blowing in the Atlantic region.
Tropical Storm Fernand is in the Gulf of Mexico and closing in on the Northeast Mexican coast just south of the U.S. border, with top sustained winds near 50 mphand higher gusts. The hurricane center says heavy rainfall of up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) could fall in places along Mexico's Gulf Coast and the Sierra Madre Oriental, and could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides as the storm moves ashore Wednesday.
Tropical Storm Gabrielle, meanwhile, is far out in the Atlantic Ocean and poses no threat to land. It is expected to remain a tropical storm on a track far from North America.
