Man in North Carolina dies preparing for Hurricane Dorian

An 85-year-old man in Columbus County, North Carolina, has died from injuries sustained after falling off the ladder as he was preparing his home for the approaching Hurricane Dorian, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said Wednesday.

The death is the first reported fatality in the state related to the storm, according to local media reports, which said the state emergency operations center didn't have the man's name, but a spokesman said he died Monday at a hospital in Fayetteville.

At a news conference Wednesday, Cooper urged North Carolinians who are in areas where an evacuation has been ordered to follow the directions of local officials and leave. "Please, don't let familiarity get in the way of good judgment," he said.

Cooper issued mandatory evacuation order for the state's barrier islands Tuesday and advised North Carolinians to complete their preparations for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian.

Approximately 396,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders, the CNN reported, citing Joint Information Center spokesperson Laura Leonard.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday approved the state of emergency declaration requested earlier by North Carolina due to the hurricane, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, the White House said in a statement.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest update issued at 1:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday that Dorian, now located some 100 miles (161 km) northeast of Daytona Beach in Florida, was "moving parallel to the northeastern coast of Florida."

Dorian's maximum sustained winds was 105 miles (169 km) per hour, according to the NHC. That wind speed indicates that Dorian is now a Category 2 hurricane.

The catastrophic hurricane has already killed at least seven people in the Bahamas after it hit the island country as a Category 5 hurricane Sunday. "We can expect more deaths to be recorded," Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis told reporters Tuesday.