Nicole’s storm surge carved a path through the Florida coast on Thursday, threatening the foundations of several beachfront homes. While residents hope to save them, many will be condemned if they do not drown in the sea.
Kate Rose’s house in Wilbur-By-The-Sea remains standing in the aftermath of Hurricane Nicole’s devastation along the Florida coast. The walls are still standing, and the windows appear to be unbroken at first glance. As hurricane season gives way to fall, her front door is still decorated with an autumn wreath of leaves and miniature gourds.
However, Rose’s home’s future is uncertain after a rare November hurricane carved away portions of the beach – and portions of her backyard patio, bringing the oceanfront to her back door.
Homes in Wilbur-By-The-Sea are in jeopardy after back-to-back hurricanes eroded the shoreline, with Hurricane Nicole dealing the final blow to multiple waterfront properties. While they may appear to have escaped with little to no damage from Nicole, crews are still determining how many have suffered condemning foundational damage.
Following Hurricane Nicole’s landfall south of Vero Beach, Florida, on Thursday morning, county and municipal building inspectors in Volusia County declared over four dozen coastal buildings, ranging from homes to hotels, unsafe. The Category 1 storm hit roughly six weeks after Hurricane Ian, giving residents little time to repair the damage caused by the previous disaster.
During a press conference on Thursday, Volusia County Manager George Recktenwald said, “The structural damage along our coastline is unprecedented.” “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The hurricane began its slow approach to land an hour after midnight on Thursday morning, though it did not make landfall until around 3 a.m., local time. Power lines were ripped apart by strong winds, and rough waves tossed boats around like toys. Daylight revealed the extent of Nicole’s devastation, and at least five fatalities associated with the storm had been reported across Florida by the end of the day Thursday.
AccuWeather issued a preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss caused by Nicole on Friday, putting the figure between $5 billion and $7 billion. While expensive, Hurricane Nicole did not cause the widespread catastrophic damage that Hurricane Ian did in late September. In fact, AccuWeather estimates that Nicole’s total damage and economic loss could be only 3% of Ian’s.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA’s gamble paid off when the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket escaped the hurricane with only minor damage after weathering the storm on the launch pad.
NASA officials met with the National Hurricane Center on Friday, Nov. 4, to decide whether or not to roll the rocket out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), a secure building where the vehicles had been stored during Hurricane Ian. They determined that, while the storm posed a risk, the wind posed a lower risk at the time.
The forecast changed on Sunday, after the spacecraft had already been rolled out to the launch pad. However, because the transportation process takes at least three days, the timing of rolling Orion back to the VAB in conjunction with Nicole’s estimated arrival times presented another risk.
The rocket was designed to withstand wind gusts of up to 85 miles per hour (74.4 knots) at an altitude of 60 feet above the ground, and Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, told reporters at a press conference on Friday that Nicole’s wind gusts did not exceed the rocket’s limits.
According to Free, the maximum wind gust recorded 60 feet above the ground at the launch pad was 82 mph on Thursday. While only 4 mph short, this is well within the rocket’s design capabilities.
“I think it’s safe to say that none of us would have wanted to stay out there,” Free said. “The VAB is the best place for vehicles in these situations. We couldn’t safely return to the VAB, so we stayed where we were, and our predictions and certification limits kept us safe.”
With only minor damage to the spacecraft, including loose RTV, a tear in the engine rain cover, and water damage in the crew access arm – all of which could be repaired in the coming days – Free announced that a launch on Nov. 16 was still on the table.
Wind gusts of more than 70 mph were recorded along Florida’s east coast as Nicole made landfall. Weather stations on NASA towers at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, recorded the highest wind gusts. A wind gust of 100 mph was reported by one weather station located about 120 feet above ground level, near the Artemis I moon rocket.
Other NASA towers in the area experienced gusts of 70 to 100 mph.
An amateur weather station at Daytona Beach outside of Cape Canaveral recorded a wind gust of 84 mph. Winds gusted to 73 miles per hour at Melbourne Airport, 67 miles per hour at Patrick Air Force Base, and 66 miles per hour at Orlando Executive Airport.
Power outages and damage were widespread in Melbourne Beach, Florida, late Wednesday into early Thursday as a result of high winds and heavy rain. Traffic lights were tossed around in the gusty winds, according to video from storm chaser Brandon Clement. The wind picked up one traffic light, which was only connected to the others by a wire, and slammed it back onto the pavement. As the wind continued to blow, streetlights throughout the city began to flicker.
Nicole dumped record amounts of rain in some areas, including Orlando, which received more than three times its monthly average of rain within 24 hours of the hurricane’s landfall. Orlando had received 6.35 inches of rain by Thursday evening. The city’s November average rainfall is 1.79 inches.
Rainfall totals in some parts of Florida, including Saint Augustine and Crystal Springs, were over 9 inches as of Thursday evening.
The storm surge, when combined with high tide, extended far beyond the beaches along Florida’s Atlantic Coast. During high tide on Thursday, waves crashed down on the roadways, ripping the asphalt apart and rendering the roads impassable. During this time, officers closed the roads to the public. The surge also shifted the coastline, jeopardizing months of effort to replenish dunes and protect the coastline.
Kelly James, of Vilano Beach, Florida, just southeast of Jacksonville, told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell that all of the roads she normally takes to get home from the local hospital where she works were closed.
“The high tide wreaked havoc on everything here.” The majority of the dunes appear to have vanished. “A section of the road behind us is gone,” James explained to Wadell. “This is without a doubt the worst we’ve seen here.”
Bridges and beachside roads in Volusia County, just northeast of Orlando, were closed on Thursday due to unsafe conditions. Some county roads and bridges reopened on Friday morning. Non-residents were still barred from parts of Atlantic Avenue in Wilbur-by-the-Sea and Daytona Beach Shores as damage assessments and recovery efforts continued. Residents with proof of residency can use the roadways.
Nicole makes landfall just over a month after Hurricane Ian devastated Florida’s southwest coast. Floridians were exasperated and exhausted from the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian six weeks ago.
George Karamitos, owner of a surf shop in Daytona Beach, said Hurricane Ian caused “several hundred dollars’ worth of damage.”
“So many of us didn’t take Ian as seriously as we should have, and as a result, we had a lot more damage,” he told Angeline. “We haven’t even had a chance to make repairs.”
Angeline filmed endangered homes early Thursday morning, after the sun had risen and Nicole had moved into central Florida. Several beachside homes in Volusia County’s coastal community of Wilbur-By-The-Sea were on the verge of collapsing into the ocean – and several of them had collapsed by mid-morning.
“With daylight comes a glimpse of Nicole’s power in Wilbur-By-The-Sea,” Angeline tweeted. “These Ian-weakened homes are deteriorating.”
Rose’s house was one of those that precariously balanced on the edge of the ocean.
“This has been our home for, I don’t know, 40, 45 years,” Rose explained to Angeline. “My parents bought this house on the spur of the moment.”
Marc Bauerle, another Wilbur-By-The-Sea resident, told Angeline about the homes in danger of falling into the sea or being condemned, including his own.
“I understand they’re going to condemn a couple of these houses, and mine where we’re standing here might be one of them, as you can see there isn’t much here,” he said.
Despite the fact that November is the final month of the Atlantic hurricane season, three systems have reached hurricane strength.
Lisa formed as a tropical storm on October 31 before strengthening to a Category 1 hurricane and making landfall in Belize on November 2. On November 1, Hurricane
Martin formed as a tropical storm. Martin then strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean before becoming an extratropical storm, bringing heavy rain and strong winds to parts of the United Kingdom. On Wednesday, November 9, Nicole became the third hurricane of the month.
AccuWeather meteorologists first warned about a tropical threat on November 3, when a tropical rainstorm formed over Puerto Rico, after forecasters began closely monitoring the Caribbean for potential tropical development in the middle of October. Over the weekend, the storm intensified, dumping rain across the island and parts of the Caribbean. The National Hurricane Center classified the storm as a subtropical storm on Monday and named it Nicole (NHC).
Forecasters at AccuWeather predicted that Nicole would strengthen into a hurricane and make landfall in Florida before the end of the week. As the National Weather Service (NWS) issued hurricane warnings for Florida’s Atlantic coast, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 34 counties in the projected path of impact on Monday.
Three tropical systems in eight days is more typical of August, which is climatologically one of the most active months in the Atlantic basin for tropical storms and hurricanes. However, there were no named tropical storms in the basin in August for the first time in 25 years. AccuWeather forecasters said atmospheric conditions were “too hostile” in August to support tropical development across the basin.
The storm will contribute to the ACE index, or accumulated cyclone energy index, for the Atlantic Hurricane season, which measures the wind energy generated by named tropical systems during a season. The index considers a storm’s maximum wind speed as well as the duration of the system at tropical storm intensity or higher.
According to Colorado State University data, Category 4 Hurricane Fiona had the highest ACE of the season so far at 26.3 after spending just over nine days as a named storm—nearly four of which were spent as a major hurricane. Nicole, which had only been a named storm for four days, had an ACE of 4 by Friday, contributing to a total ACE value of 95.1. Hurricane Ian had the season’s second-highest ACE of 17.4 after Fiona.
Nicole made landfall early Thursday morning, becoming the third hurricane on record to make landfall in Florida during the month of November. Previously, on November 21, 1985, Hurricane Kate made landfall, and on November 4, 1935, the “Yankee Hurricane” made landfall.
Nicole is now the only storm in recorded history to make landfall on the state’s east coast after November 4, according to Colorado State University Meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. Kate made landfall on November 21, but near the town of Mexico Beach on the Florida Panhandle, according to Klotzbach. Kate is the only hurricane to have made landfall in the continental United States so late in an Atlantic hurricane season.