Hurricane Dorian has killed at least 30 people in the Bahamas, but officials are bracing for the death toll to climb significantly when the extent of the devastation becomes clear — as the weakened Category 1 storm continued its assault on North Carolina on Friday.

“Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing,” Joy Jibrilu, director general of the country’s tourism and aviation ministry, told CNN.

Body bags, additional morticians and refrigerated coolers to store bodies were being delivered to Abaco and other affected areas, Health Minister Duane Sands told Guardian Radio 96.9 FM.

Meanwhile, Dorian lashed North Carolina early Friday and forecasters said it could make landfall later in the morning when at least half its eye crosses land.

At 6 a.m., Dorian was brushing the edge of Cape Lookout, just 20 miles east of the Outer Banks, moving northward at 14 mph with sustained winds of nearly 90 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

“Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 220 miles,” the NHC said.

Almost 300,000 customers across the Carolinas have been left without power, officials said. Some power outages also were beginning to occur in parts of Virginia as outer bands from the hurricane start to impact the southern part of that state, according to CNN.

“Life-threatening storm surge and dangerous winds are expected to continue along portions of the North Carolina coast,” the hurricane center said at 5 a.m. “Flash flooding is occurring, and will continue to become more widespread across the eastern Carolinas and far southeast Virginia this morning.”

The storm has already dumped up to 10 inches of rain along the coast between Charleston, SC, to Wilmington, NC, about 170 miles away, forecasters said.

Dorian is expected to push out to sea later Friday and bring tropical storm winds to Nantucket Island and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., early Saturday – but will likely spare much of the rest of the East Coast.

Ann Warner, who owns Howard’s Pub on North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island, said people did what they could to prepare.

“The boats are tied down. Yards are cleaned up. Businesses are closed. People are hunkered down,” Warner said Thursday.

Warner, who lives near the southern end of island chain, said about half the 1,000 residents of Ocracoke stuck it out. Ferries stopped service on Wednesday, she said, so “If you want to change your mind, it’s too late. We’re on our own.”

Farther north, Virginia also was also in harm’s way, and a round of evacuations was ordered there.

Doria hammered the Bahamas with 185 mph winds before sweeping past Florida at a relatively safe distance, grazing Georgia, and then hugging the South Carolina-North Carolina coastline.

At least four deaths in the Southeast have been blamed on the hurricane.

With Post wires