Dorian parallels Florida while death toll rises in Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian began to speed up Wednesday morning as it continued to lash Florida's east coast with heavy rain and damaging winds up to 70 mph, causing power outages to increase in the state.

After dealing a heavy hand of destruction to the Bahamas, Dorian weakened into a Category 2 storm Tuesday. Maximum sustained winds were down to 105 mph early Wednesday morning, but it's forward speed increased to 8 mph. Officials have confirmed at least seven deaths following Dorian's beating in the Bahamas. But forecasters warn that even though the wind speeds are weakening, the storm still poses extreme danger to the southern coast of the United States.

Millions in coastal regions from Florida to Virginia on remained on the lookout for Dorian. With hurricane and storm surge watches and warnings lining the coast, officials are preparing residents for the worst. The first tropical storm force wind gust in the United States was recorded along the Treasure Coast of Florida on Tuesday afternoon at a station by the Sebastian Inlet.

The crawling, slow progress of the storm allowed the hurricane to spend more than 24 hours dumping rain and whipping intense winds across the Bahamas. Dorian is the slowest forward-moving major hurricane in a 24-hour period ever, and slowest since Wilma in 2005.

In the southeastern U.S., evacuations for more than two million people began on Monday afternoon. Governors from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia all signed state of emergencies and called for mandatory evacuations.

RELATED: Hurricane Dorian

Both the storm surge warning and the storm surge watch were extended farther north, with the warning now reaching Surf City, North Carolina, and the watch now reaching Poquoson Virginia, including Hampton Roads.

A hurricane warning is in effect north of the Savannah River to Surf City.

Despite the mandatory evacuations, some residents in New Smyrna, Florida, have decided to wait out the storm.

“People who work and live here on the beach who have decided to stay behind; they tell me that they are a bit concerned with the real threat of storm surge,” AccuWeather Correspondent Bill Waddell reported. “Especially because of the speed that Dorian is moving with right now.”

“It is likely, there's been a lot of flooding down where I’m at, that’s what I’m more concerned about than anything,” Jen Pridemore, a New Smyrna Beach resident, said.

Volunteers wade through a road flooded by Hurricane Dorian as they work to rescue residents near the Causarina bridge in Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019. The storm’s punishing winds and muddy brown floodwaters devastated thousands of homes, crippled hospitals and trapped people in attics.

About one hour north up the Florida coast, residents in America's oldest city, St. Augustine, braced for the impacts of Hurricane Dorian. As one resident put it, a sense of the inevitable has set in there, even if landfall never happens.

"We're just in one of those towns that when a hurricane comes close to us with a six- or eight-foot surge, yes, everything's going to flood," Steven Drake said on Monday. "In a storm like this, the water comes up, and there's nowhere for it to go."

Scenes from all around St. Augustine on Monday showed businesses boarded up and fortified by sandbags as Dorian hovered a little more than 100 miles off Florida's Atlantic coast.

The effects of the hurricane have already made a large impact on many in the Southeast several days before the storm had even arrived. In Florida, a Rolling Stones concert had to be rescheduled in Miami, a college football game in Jacksonville had to be relocated to Tallahassee and Walt Disney World made the decision to close all of its parks at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, a rare decision for the company who has only closed three times since 1971, according to CNBC.

Even though the eye wall of the storm is expected to remain offshore, powerful winds and tropical storm conditions along the Florida and Georgia coasts are expected during the first half of the week. Dorian is forecast to slowly weaken along much of its northeastward route from Georgia to North Carolina waters. The hurricane is likely to be a Category 1 near North Carolina during Friday morning.