Hurricane Dorian: 68-Year-Old Florida Man Dies During Storm Preparations

A 68-year-old Florida man died over the weekend while preparing for Hurricane Dorian, authorities have confirmed. According to Florida Today, Indialantic man David Bradley passed away on Sunday after he fell from a ladder while attempting to put plywood on the windows of a beachside condominium in preparation of the storm, which has since been downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane.

Indialantic police confirmed the death, stating that the incident occurred at around 4:30 p.m. on Wavecrest Avenue in Indialantic. Bradley had reportedly been standing on a ladder in the screened-in balcony facing the sea when he fell three stories to his death. Authorities added that he may have suffered a cardiac episode during the incident.

"He was putting up the plywood and lost his balance and fell through the screen," Chief Mike Connor of the Indialantic Police Department, said, adding that Bradley fell onto the ground below behind the condo, which faces the shoreline.

An investigation into Bradley's death is ongoing.

Unfortunately, Bradley's is just the latest Hurricane Dorian-related death. As the storm made landfall on the Abaco Islands as a Category 5 storm, destroying an estimated 13,000 homes, there have been at least five confirmed deaths in the Bahamas.

"We are in the midst of a historic tragedy," Prime Minister Hubert Minnis of the Bahamas said at an evening press conference, The New York Times reports. "Our focus is search, rescue and recovery. I ask for your prayers for those in affected areas and for our first responders."

Among the dead are 7-year-old Lachino McIntosh, who drowned as his family attempted to flee their damaged home, and former police officer Earnest Rahming, who was killed in a car crash in Abaco hours after Dorian made landfall Sunday morning.

Dozens more are reported missing or injured, and the death toll is expected to rise once emergency personnel are able to enter the islands. Currently inundated by water, there is fear that bodies will be carried out to sea as the flood waters recede.

Although Dorian has remained stationary over the Bahamas for the past 36 hours, continuing to produce wind gusts of up to 115 mph and a storm surge of 10-to-15 feet, it is located just 100 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida, and is expected to skirt the coastline.

Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean said that as Dorian undergoes structural changes, it is "getting larger" and will therefore "affect more territory," including the states of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

In anticipation of the storm, residents in those states have begun preparing for possible landfall and the storm's outer bands by boarding up their homes. Officials have also ordered mandatory and voluntary evacuations.