Lee's sheer power is expected to bring dangerous beach conditions to Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos over the weekend. Its effects on the U.S. East Coast are still unclear.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says the 90-year-old man died Tuesday in Dixie County after a tree fell on a tractor he was operating.

Hurricane Lee strengthened to a Category 5 storm late Thursday night, forecasters said, and could present potentially dangerous beach conditions on the U.S. East Coast as early as this Sunday.

The needs across the 11 counties of the Big Bend are varied and complex.

In Keaton Beach where Hurricane Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 storm about a week ago, recovery is ongoing and getting back to normal is something community members say they’ll do together.

Flamingos have been found as far north as Pennsylvania after Hurricane Idalia struck Florida last week. But the birds were likely blown in all the way from the Yucatan Peninsula.

Officials said Wednesday that the 60-year-old man went missing while windsurfing in the Banana River last Thursday, a day after Idalia made landfall with 125 mph (201 kph) winds across the state in Florida’s Big Bend region.

The storm was located about 1,130 miles (1,815 kilometers) east of the northern Leeward Islands and moving west-northwest at 14 miles per hour (22 kilometers per hour) on Wednesday. It had maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kilometers per hour).

Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put “politics ahead of his job” by declining to meet with President Joe Biden during Biden's weekend visit to survey Hurricane Idalia’s damage in DeSantis’ state.

Anyone 18 and older can join the online support group daily at either 12 noon or 6 pm.

The storm was frightening, but the response was uplifting.

One man who manages vacation rentals said his resort is shutting down indefinitely to repair millions of dollars in damage, which may take more than a year to complete.