Hurricane Dorian updates: After making landfall in North Carolina, the storm is moving up the coast. At least 30 people have died in the Bahamas.

Hurricane Dorian is moving away from North Carolina after making landfall over the Outer Banks early Friday as a Category 1 storm. 

The center of the storm passed over Cape Hatteras, part of the Outer Banks, at 8:35 a.m. ET, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and brought 90-mph winds, 7 feet of storm surge, and heavy rainfall.

Life-threatening storm surge and winds are expected to continue through Friday evening along portions of the North Carolina coast.

As of 5 p.m. ET on Friday, Dorian was 330 miles southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts, with the eye of the storm moving northeast over the Atlantic Ocean at 24 mph.

Five storm-related deaths have been reported in the US, CNN reported: three in Florida and two in North Carolina.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters on Wednesday that the first fatality there was an 85-year-old man fell from a ladder and died while preparing for the storm.

No hurricane warning is in effect in the US anymore, though a storm-surge warning still affects the coast of North Carolina between the community of Salter Path and the state's border with Virginia.

The NHC also warned of dangerous swells along the coast from northern Florida to North Carolina over the weekend.

National Hurricane Center

Dorian is expected to bring tropical storm conditions to parts of southeast Massachusetts on Friday night or early Saturday, then to parts of the Maine coast on Saturday afternoon.

The NHC expects the hurricane to then make landfall in Nova Scotia on Saturday night and Sunday, bringing storm surge and hurricane-force winds to the area and neighboring Newfoundland. Dorian may become a post-tropical cyclone by then, but it is expected to have "a significant impact in portions of eastern Canada" either way, the NHC said.

On Friday afternoon, the Canadian Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for eastern Nova Scotia from Hubbards to Avonport.

800 people were trapped by floods in North Carolina

Severe storm surge in North Carolina's Outer Banks flooded homes and forced people into their attics on Ocracoke Island. 

"There is significant concern about hundreds of people trapped on Ocracoke Island," Gov. Cooper said. "There are rescue teams ready as soon as they can get in."

Up to 800 people on the island may have gotten stranded because of the floodwaters, according to the BBC.

ABC News reported that helicopter crews began evacuating residents in need on Friday afternoon. 

Longtime residents told the AP that they had never seen flooding so severe.

"The wall of water just came rushing through the island from the sound side. And it just started looking like a bathtub, very quickly," Steve Harris, who has lived on Ocracoke Island for most of the last 19 years, told the AP. "We went from almost no water to 4 to 6 feet in a matter of minutes."

He added that some people were getting around the island by boat.

30 people have been reported dead in the Bahamas, but an official said the total death toll could be 'unimaginable'

The death toll in the Bahamas as a result of Hurricane Dorian rose to 30 on Thursday and is likely to increase further.

Joy Jibrilu, the director general of the Bahamas' tourism and aviation ministry, said the total death toll would be "unimaginable."

"Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing," she said.

Read more: Satellite photos show the vast scale of the flooding caused by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas

Most of the recorded deaths were on the Abaco Islands. The island of Grand Bahama was hit particularly hard as well.

"We are embalming bodies so that we have more capacity as new bodies are brought in," Duane Sands, the Bahamas Minister of Health, told the New York Times on Thursday. "We need to get coolers into Abaco and Grand Bahama, because we believe that we may not have the capacity to store the bodies."

Read more: 'We walking like zombies': Survivors of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas describe the aftermath of the storm

An estimated 13,000 houses — 45% of the homes on Grand Bahama and Abaco — were thought to be severely damaged or destroyed, the AP reported, citing the Red Cross.

Dorian brought storm surges as high as 23 feet to Grand Bahama on Monday — so high that authorities told people to find flotation devices and escape from their attics if necessary, according to the AP.

Read more: 'The force of a thousand sledgehammers': A storm chaser trapped in the Bahamas during Dorian described the 'most intense' hurricane he'd ever witnessed

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"It's total devastation," Lia Head-Rigby, an aid worker who flew over the Abaco Islands, told the AP. "It's decimated. Apocalyptic."

She added: "It's not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again."

In Abaco's largest town, Treasure Cay, the storm destroyed or damaged about 95% of homes, according the New York Times. One resident of that area died and others were injured seriously enough to require emergency evacuation. The community of mostly Haitian migrants has been left without power, water, or working phone lines.

Residents have been sifting through the debris of their homes and searching for friends and family via word of mouth. Many gathered at the airport after hearing that there would be evacuations, though most have been unable to leave the island.

Planes carrying medical teams and emergency supplies began arriving in the area on Wednesday.

"It's going to be a long haul," Steve Pedican, a Treasure Cay resident, told the New York Times.

The US Coast has rescued 205 people from the Bahamas, CNN reported on Friday.

Amidst the tragedy, miraculous stories of survival have begun to emerge. A blind father carried his disabled son on his shoulders through floodwater to safety, and a family dog saved a woman trapped under a collapsed roof.

One of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever to make landfall

Dorian struck the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm on Sunday, with sustained wind speeds of 185 mph. That power tied it as the strongest Atlantic hurricane landfall ever recorded.

It was on par with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane that battered the Bahamas, Florida, and the US East Coast, the National Hurricane Center said.

"Few people who have ever walked this Earth have gone through the hell that they're going through in the Bahamas in the last couple of days," a CNN meteorologist said.

Some wind gusts on Abaco on Sunday afternoon reached up to 220 mph.

Dorian could be part of an above-average hurricane season

Dorian is the fourth named storm of this Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projects a 45% chance that this year will see above-average storm activity. That could mean five to nine hurricanes in the Atlantic, with two to four of those expected storms becoming major hurricanes (defined as Category 3 or above, with winds greater than 110 miles per hour).

On average, the Atlantic sees six hurricanes in a season, with three developing into major hurricanes. Hurricane season peaks in August through October and ends November 30.

Ana Pelisson/Business Insider

Categories on the Saffir-Simpson scale don't necessarily indicate the full destructive power of a storm, however, as they're based solely on wind speed. In Dorian's case, the storm has traveled slowly, so its effects have been prolonged.

Slower, wetter storms are becoming more common as the planet warms. Over the past 70 years or so, the speed of hurricanes and tropical storms has slowed about 10% on average, a 2018 study found.

Dorian is now the fifth hurricane to reach Category 5 over the past four hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic. In the past 95 years, there have been only 35 Category 5 hurricanes in the North Atlantic, so this rate is far above average.

• Read more:
• Here's why storms are getting stronger, slower, and wetter
• Waves caused by Hurricane Dorian are washing up bricks of cocaine on Florida beaches
• 'Hurricane Hunters' have been flying in and out of Dorian — here's what they've seen inside this powerful storm

• I've been through the eye of a Category 4 hurricane — here are 7 things you should do to protect your money before and after

• Photos show the mangled airplanes and buildings at Grand Bahama airport that Hurricane Dorian left behind

• A Florida cop rescued a puppy from a flooded vehicle and named her 'Dorian' after the deadly hurricane