Tropical Storm Nicole toppled homes into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday and threatened several high-rise buildings in places where Hurricane Ian had destroyed seawalls and other protection weeks earlier.
“Numerous coastal homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea have collapsed and other properties are at risk,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in a social media post. In the Daytona Beach area, bridges to the shoreline were closed to all but essential personnel and a curfew was declared, he added.
Wilbur-by-the-Sea is a neighborhood on an island off the coast where there are only houses, no condominiums or hotels. In nearby Daytona Beach Shores, a row of condominiums along what was left of the beach after Hurricane Ian, the entire population was evacuated before Nicole made landfall because all the seawalls had collapsed.
Nicole remained a massive tropical storm that covered most of the state of Florida and stretched into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama. Damaging winds extended up to 450 miles (720 kilometers) from the center in some directions as Nicole turned north over central Florida.
Krista Dowling Goodrich, manager of 130 rental homes in Daytona Beach Shores, saw the beach disappear behind some homes that were being evacuated.
“While we were there, the entire backyard started falling into the ocean. She made it all the way to the house,” Goodrich said. He added that the water covered land between several nearby high-rise condominiums.
Authorities in Daytona Beach Shores deemed the residential buildings along the shoreline unsafe and went door-to-door telling people to pack up their belongings and leave. They declared unsafe a half-dozen high-rise residential buildings damaged by Hurricane Ian and now threatened by Nico.
“It was the tall buildings. People who refused to leave were forcibly removed because it’s not safe,” Goodrich said. “I am concerned about the infrastructure in the area because when the breakwaters disappear, they will not allow people to return… There will be a lot of displaced people for a while.”
The hurricane, unusual for November, prompted the closure of airports and amusement parks, as well as evacuations, including that of Mar-a-Lago, the estate of former President Donald Trump. Storm surge could further erode many of the beaches hit by Hurricane Ian in September, officials warned.
Robbie Berg, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, asked people to consider the dangers Nicole would bring “to the entire state of Florida today.”
The weather in South Florida was sunny and calm as the storm moved north and could dump up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain on the Blue Ridge Mountains, forecasters said.
Nicole made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in Vero Beach around 3 a.m., but then its maximum sustained winds dropped to 60 mph (100 km/h), the Miami-based center said. The center was 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Orlando and was moving west-northwest at 14 mph (22 km/h).