At least 12 people were confirmed dead after Tropical Storm Erika lashed the island of Dominica and is headed across the Caribbean in the direction of south Florida.

The storm is likely to continue to bring strong winds to Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Friday, and the two nations may see heavy rainfall of up to 10 inches in some areas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted, Reuters reported.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has deployed assistance teams to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which "support response activities to ensure that there are no unmet needs on those islands," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told USA Today.

In Florida, meanwhile, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Friday. Noting that Erika could make its way up the Sunshine State from Sunday into next week, Scott pointed to major flood concerns in the Tampa and Gulf Coast areas.

But there is also a chance that the storm could weaken or even dissipate in the next 12-24 hours, the National Hurricane Center cautioned.

"If the center of Erika survives the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola, it should slowly reorganize back into a tropical storm this weekend, just northeast of Cuba," AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said. "If Erica does not survive the interaction with Hispaniola, it may never reorganize into a coherent tropical storm again and impact on Florida would be reduced."

Forecasters have said that Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, is unusually hard to predict due to disruption from wind patterns and its interaction over land.

As they announced the double-digit death toll, authorities in Dominica said that about 20 were missing after Erika flooded the land and caused rivers to surge, The Associated Press reported. The island nation's prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, urged citizens to help clear streets strewn with mud and toppled trees following the storm's passage.

President Obama, meanwhile, is being briefed regularly on disaster preparations in Florida and the U.S. island territories, the White House said.