NHC Director Ken Graham saw a worrying, unpredictable situation for Florida with the hurricane set to hit land somewhere up its east coast.

"Slow is not our friend, the longer you keep this around the more rain we get," said Graham in a Facebook Live video. While it was unclear where the hurricane would make landfall, the results were expected to be devastating: "Big time impacts, catastrophic events, for some areas 140 mph winds, not a good situation," said Graham.

Mindful of that warning, Cocoa Beach Mayor Ben Malik was putting up storm shutters on his Florida home on Friday afternoon and worrying about the flooding Dorian could unleash on his barrier island town.

"It's slowed down, we're looking at a multiple day event, we were hoping it would just barrel through and leave," Malik said of forecasts Dorian could sit over Florida for up to two days dumping up to 18 inches (46 cm) of water. "I'm really worried about the amount of rain we'll be getting."