Updates on Tropical Storm Nicole: Tropical Storm Nicole Sweeps Across Florida (Published 2022) (2024)

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Here’s what to know about the storm.

More than 30 million people were under some type of storm-related warning, and more than 300,000 customers in Florida had lost electric power at times on Thursday, mostly in Brevard, Indian River and Volusia Counties along the state’s east coast, according to poweroutage.us, a site that tracks power interruptions. By early evening, the number without power had fallen below 200,000.

Parts of Florida are still recovering from Hurricane Ian, which slammed into the southwestern part of the state as a Category 4 storm in late September.

In other developments:

• Four deaths have been attributed to the storm, including two people in Orange County who were electrocuted by a downed power line and two others who crashed on the Florida Turnpike, according to the Sheriff’s Department and mayor of Orange County.

• Storm surge and pounding surf have eroded the beach in Daytona Beach Shores, Fla., so badly that many beachfront high-rises have been deemed unsafe and evacuated, and several houses there and in neighboring Wilbur-by-the-Sea have collapsed wholly or partly into the ocean.

• Nicole is likely to cause more coastal flooding and possibly some tornadoes as it moves north through Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas over the next two days, forecasters said.

• The breach of a sea wall protecting drainage canals in Port Orange, Fla., threatened more than 500 homes with flooding, the mayor said.

A major coastal Florida road has partially collapsed, leaving residents stranded.

“We know that there is significant coastal erosion right on the back of Ian, and now with Nicole coming through, so please be careful, please stay safe,” Mr. Conrad said.

Officials did not mention any major injuries or deaths, but there were a “number of rescues” on the highway in areas where it had collapsed, Jeff Prevatt, the fire rescue chief for St. Johns County, said in the news conference.

The Florida Department of Transportation is trying to repair the damaged parts of A1A and remove large chunks of debris and asphalt, Greg Caldwell, the public works director for St. Johns County, said at the conference. The current priority is to repair roads before the next high tide at 9 p.m., and then fix them for “full access through the area” later on, Mr. Caldwell added.

Mark Fetz, 43, a resident of Vilano Beach, said this was the first time he had experienced such a collapse, but he added that there were signs that it would happen.

After Hurricane Ian, he said, much of the dunes protecting A1A, the only way in and out of Vilano Beach, had been compromised. Sand bags were usually placed along the highway before big storms to mitigate the damage, but strong storms last year sucked away much of the protective infrastructure, Mr. Fetz said. Nicole was no different.

“All the dunes — all the shore — that was protecting that highway is gone and the ocean is basically lapping up against the highway,” Mr. Fetz said. “Now it’s probably going to take weeks and millions of dollars to fix if they’re going to do it right.”

More than 14,000 residents were without power in St. John’s County as of Thursday afternoon. Mr. Fetz said he was one of the few people in his neighborhood with the lights still on. He said his biggest concern was the many older residents who live on Vilano Beach, who can’t leave their homes and have to depend on “whatever is in their refrigerator” while the road is being fixed.

Left exposed by Ian, Daytona Beach Shores gets a knockout blow from Nicole.

Mayor Nancy Miller said on Thursday that at least 19 ocean-facing condominium buildings were found to be compromised over the past day, as the storm tore away at the sand and sea walls along the shore. Later, the list grew to 23, as more buildings were deemed unsafe.

Daytona Beach Shores, a small barrier beach community whose permanent population of 5,100 doubles with winter visitors as the high season starts in November, has around 60 high-rise condominiums, one of which is a combined hotel and residence. The town had only just started to recover from Hurricane Ian, which caused significant erosion that left the community exposed when Nicole approached.

“Ian did the initial damage, and this was just on top of that,” Ms. Miller said. “If this had been a stand-alone storm, we still would have had property damage, but not as much as we see together.”

The Daytona Beach Shores City Council issued a mandatory evacuation for the barrier island on Monday, but most residents of the oceanfront buildings did not heed it, Ms. Miller said. “They waited until someone came knocking on their door, saying it was unsafe and that they needed to get out.”

Volusia County sheriff’s deputies went door to door on Wednesday and evacuated 200 people from vulnerable buildings. As the storm moved out and the tide receded on Thursday, it became clear that more condos were in peril, Ms. Miller said, and more than 300 additional people were evacuated.

Daytona Beach Shores did not have much time for restoration work between the two storms. Ms. Miller said the beach, which is managed by the county, had not yet been replenished, nor had condos with damaged sea walls been able to do much to repair them.

“Unfortunately, most of the action they took probably bought them a couple hours,” Ms. Miller said of the efforts in general. “Most of that repair is gone.”

She said the town’s chief building inspector started visiting every coastline property on Thursday as soon as the morning high tide subsided. Two town inspectors and an engineer and inspector from the county were going over the compromised buildings in detail, and some state experts were due to arrive on Friday to help, the mayor said. “We want to make sure we’re doing our due diligence in these buildings before we let anybody back in,” Ms. Miller said.

“I’ve been driving down the A1A, getting out periodically and creeping to the back of buildings to look over,” Ms. Miller said, referring to the main coastal highway. From the street side, everything may look normal, she said, but go around the back, “and then you see what’s going on.”

Ms. Miller said she never imagined she would be looking at storm damage of this magnitude.

“I’m just devastated,” she said. “No drone or pictures can prepare you for what you see.”

An oceanfront town in Florida was ‘pumping water in a circle’ when the sea surged.

At least six streets were underwater late Wednesday night “to the point that they were impassable by police vehicles,” he said.

“We were using maintenance trucks to access areas to check on people, and at one point, Coconut Lane and Hudson Avenue became impassable even with the maintenance trucks,” he said.

There were no reports of flooding inside homes in Ocean Ridge. “We had some that were within inches,” Chief Jones said, “but we had no flooding.”

Briny Breezes, immediately south of Ocean Ridge, was not as fortunate.

“There were homes down there that were entirely flooded,” said Chief Jones, whose police department provides public safety services for Briny Breezes.

Compounding the flood problems was a malfunctioning transformer that cut power to homes on the west side of town, north of the marina. That also meant that water pumps on which the town usually relies were not working.

“But even if the pumps had worked,” Chief Jones said, “I mean, water was overtopping the sea walls. There is literally no way it would have mattered.”

Police officers arrived in Briny Breezes just after dawn and “attempted to help them set up large scale pumps,” Chief Jones said. “But when high tide returned this morning at 10:30, it was back over the sea wall again and we were literally just pumping water in a circle so ended up calling it off.”

Chief Jones said he plans to ask the Ocean Ridge Town Commission to consider investing in a high-water rescue vehicle to prepare in case the town ever takes a direct hit from a hurricane.

“If this would have been a storm of any significance beyond what this was and people did not evacuate, there would have been absolutely no way we could have gotten to some of these people’s houses,” Chief Jones said. “We are going to have to do something.”

As Nicole cleanup starts, health officials advise Floridians on what to wear.

Officials also recommend donning a long-sleeved shirt and heavy-work gloves to avoid cuts while gathering debris and household waste. Rounding out the recommendations on disaster attire are long pants, with rubber boots when cleaning up sewage or steel-toed boots for other cleanup work.

In the event of cuts, the department recommends to “immediately clean all open wounds with soap and water’’ and wrap those wounds with waterproof bandages.

More critically, the department urged people not to handle downed power lines as they go about trying to return to normal. “To prevent electrocution in wet areas, turn power off at the main breaker,’’ the department said.

The urgency of that message was underscored by fatalities attributed to the storm in the state. Two people died on Thursday morning in the Orlando area after they were electrocuted by a downed power line.

Though Nicole largely spared the island, signs of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Dorian in 2019 are still visible. Houses and business structures in some parts of Abaco still lack the windows or roofs they lost in Dorian.

A trainee pilot’s plans to take flight are buffeted by back-to-back hurricanes.

Ms. Rzeszotko said her own house was spared by Nicole, though the water rose high in her yard, too.

When asked about the strength of the winds, Ms. Rzeszotko replied: “I think they reached 50 knots — or, wait, 57 miles per hour.”

“Sorry, I’m learning to be a pilot, so I think in knots,” she added.

By comparison, pilots are recommended to fly in crosswinds no greater that 17 knots, or 19 m.p.h., Ms. Rzeszotko said.

Ms. Rzeszotko said she was supposed to start flying this week, but Nicole foiled her plans.

“The same thing happened six weeks ago when the other hurricane hit — I’m starting to take it as a sign,” she said.

A downed power line killed two people in the Orlando area.

A woman who had been traveling with the man was also electrocuted and was transported to an area hospital where she died, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Their names, ages and place of residence were not immediately disclosed on Thursday.

In light of the deaths, the Sheriff’s Office said it was “urging all of our residents and visitors to use extreme caution if they are outside in the wake of the storm today.”

“Never touch a downed power line,’’ the Sheriff’s Office added. “If you are driving and see a downed power line, change directions immediately.”

The sheriff’s office said a man was found dead at the scene, and a woman who was with him died later at a hospital, both from electrocution. The man had apparently gotten out of a vehicle, deputies said.

With Ian’s scars still fresh, people in Orlando stay wary about Nicole.

Orlando residents are hoping Nicole won’t wreak the level of destruction they saw six weeks ago from Hurricane Ian. As of midday Thursday, Nicole had yielded about five inches of rain — enough to cause trouble, but nothing like the foot or more that Ian drenched the landscape with. Lake Davis, in a residential area near downtown Orlando, had so far not risen as much as it did in late September, when it overflowed its banks and poured knee-high water into some houses.

“We were lucky we didn’t flood,” said Jennifer Howell, 40, who ventured out near the lake a little before noon on Thursday. “Our neighborhood flooded last time — very significantly.”

That does not mean residents’ worries are over. The worst flooding from Ian only became apparent hours after the most intense winds had passed. People like Ms. Howell who have lived in the area for a while knew it was too soon to relax.

“I was here in 2004 when we had back-to-back storms,” she said. “It feels a little like that.”

Still, it felt calm enough Thursday morning for her to take a short walk with her children.

“We were just saying, ‘Bye Nicole!’” she said with half a smile. “It’s on its way out.”

“The center of it, there’s nothing there,” said Peggy Mohler, a manager at the Aruba Beach Cafe, a nearby restaurant that was not damaged. “It’s very sad that this happened,” she said. “I’ve never seen waves like I saw last night.”

The National Weather Service in Melbourne said the worst water levels have likely passed for the Treasure Coast, though high tide could still cause problems in some areas. However, in Brevard and Volusia Counties, this next high tide will likely be the worst impact from the surge the counties have encountered, they said.

After crossing Florida, Nicole will move up the East Coast, bringing heavy rain.

Nicole will move across Georgia and South Carolina on Friday and then farther north, David Roth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center, said on Thursday.

As Nicole moves through the Southeast, it’s likely to bring tornadoes across the region.

“A few tornadoes are expected during the day from northern Florida into eastern Georgia and South Carolina, and possibly overnight into southern North Carolina,” according to an update early Thursday from the Storm Prediction Center.

Tornadoes are common in hurricanes and are often relatively weak and short-lived, but they can still pose a significant threat if one strikes a populated area.

“By time we get to Friday night and into Saturday, the low pressure system associated with the storm is expected to be accelerating up the Appalachians,” before reaching New England by Sunday, Mr. Roth said.

While heavy rain and strong winds from Nicole were a concern for many Floridians, other states in the storm’s path will mainly get rain.

Nicole will likely be downgraded to a tropical depression as it moves over Georgia, Mr. Roth said.

“The forecast is for two to four inches, with local amounts of six inches, as it moves through the southeast Appalachians,” he said. Parts of the Northeast and New England could see lower amounts.

Since the storm was expected to be a rain maker, there was a slight risk of excessive rainfall from the Southeast to New York, according to the Weather Prediction Center.

“The worry is that there could be some hourly rain totals of an inch, inch and a half, which over a few hours could overwhelm” urban areas or places with high elevations, Mr. Roth said.

Once the warmer, tropical-like rainy weather from Nicole pushes through the Northeast, a colder air mass will move across the East, dropping high temperatures well below average on Sunday.

Nicole brings the threat of widespread coastal flooding.

As Nicole moved across east-central Florida before dawn on Thursday, it was weakening but still producing maximum sustained winds of about 70 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters predicted several inches of rain in the state, along with large and destructive waves near the landfall site, south of Vero Beach.

“At this point the event’s kind of winding down for us,” Shawn Bhatti, a meteorologist at the Weather Service’s office in Miami, about 150 miles south of Vero Beach, said by phone a few hours before dawn. “Maybe not so much for the rest of Florida.”

Forecasters said that they did not expect Nicole’s impacts to be anywhere close to those of Hurricane Ian, which left a trail of devastation in September after hitting western Florida as a Category 4 storm. Many of the evacuation orders issued along the state’s Atlantic Coast on Wednesday were not mandatory.

Still, because Nicole’s wind field stretched for hundreds of miles, a primary concern was that the storm could raise water levels along the coastlines of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

“It has a big envelope of water it’s pushing out ahead out of it,” said Tim Sedlock, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Melbourne, Fla. “So it’s going to affect a large area.”

Mr. Sedlock said that he expected to see coastal waters rise to three to six feet along some parts of the Florida coast. He said rapid beach erosion could potentially topple some coastal structures, particularly in the Daytona Beach area.

James Swan, 49, a former Florida resident who now lives in Utah, has been in Port Canaveral this week to attend his son’s wedding on Friday.

Around 2:15 a.m. on Thursday, he said, he decided to drive inland with his wife along a route that included a coastal byway and a causeway.

Normally the causeway, which crosses the Indian River and connects a barrier island with Florida’s mainland, is idyllic. But this time the conditions forced Mr. Swan’s car to hydroplane.

“Driving on the causeway with the wind and everything was, phew, something else,” he said.

The couple made it to a hotel further inland, between Melbourne and Palm Bay, minutes before the hurricane made landfall.

Rivers swollen by Hurricane Ian could see renewed flooding from Nicole.

A renewed rise on the St. John’s River, which runs roughly parallel to parts of Florida’s Atlantic coast, was also possible across the state on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said in a 4 a.m. advisory.

Some areas near the river were flooded after Hurricane Ian and still have very high water levels, Tim Sedlock, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Melbourne, Fla., said by phone early Thursday morning.

“Any additional rain at all will obviously create additional flooding problems,” he said.

But there is good news: Experts expected Nicole’s brisk forward speed — 14 miles per hour as of 4 a.m. — to lessen the amount of rain that falls across the region.

The predicted totals “are nowhere near the magnitude of rainfall that occurred during Hurricane Ian in part because of the speed of the storm,” Todd Hamill, a service coordination hydrologist with the National Weather Service, said in an interview. “And fortunately, Florida has had a pretty dry six weeks since the storm.”

However, the threat of flash flooding was still possible across the Florida Peninsula on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said, adding that 3 to 5 inches of rain, with an isolated maximum of 8 inches, could fall in some parts of the state by Saturday.

Slightly lower totals were expected in other parts of the southeastern United States, the Northern Mid-Atlantic and New England.