Nicole's impacts on Florida's east coast will be felt for months and years to come
DAYTONA BEACH - Floridians are once again picking up the pieces after Nicole slammed into the state Thursday, killing at least four people, ripping buildings apart, and leaving some homes unlivable as it bore down with dangerous storm surge and powerful winds.
Nicole hit Florida's eastern coast, just south of Vero Beach, as a Category 1 hurricane in the early morning hours, before weakening into a tropical storm and then a depression. It arrived as the state was still reeling from catastrophic Hurricane Ian, which tore a path of destruction across Florida after hitting the western coast just weeks ago.
After Nicole passed through, streets were left flooded, roads and homes were damaged, and thousands were without power. More than 300,000 customers in Florida were affected by outages earlier. That number had fallen to more than 50,000 early Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.
Two people died after being "electrocuted by a downed power line" in Orange County, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Two additional deaths are being investigated as possibly storm-related after a fatal car accident, said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.
Downed power lines in flooded streets are among a multitude of hazards residents must maneuver in the hurricane's wake as they return to their homes, and crews work to clear debris from roadways and conduct emergency repairs to washed out roads.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has extended a state of emergency to all counties "simply because we're not sure of the extent of the impacts, in Northwest Florida in particular," he said Thursday morning.
'Unprecedented' Damage
In Volusia County, at least 49 beachfront properties, including hotels and condos, have been deemed "unsafe" in Nicole's aftermath.
"The structural damage along our coastline is unprecedented," county manager George Recktenwald said in a news conference, adding that more buildings will likely be identified as compromised.
Ian-battered coastal buildings were further compromised by coastal erosion as the storm approached, prompting deputies to go door to door Wednesday evacuating residents from structurally unsound buildings in Volusia County ahead of Nicole's arrival.
As the storm walloped the region, oceanfront homes in Wilbur-By-The-Sea -- a barrier island community off Daytona Beach -- collapsed into the ocean.
Resident Trip Valigorsky unlocked the front door to his home to see a gaping hole leading to crashing ocean waves where his living room once stood. He pointed to where the television and sofa used to be.
"I was here Tuesday night and I kind of watched the wall deteriorate and then I woke up Wednesday morning and the wall was completely gone so I started evacuating," Valigorsky said. "And now here we are."
A day earlier, 22 homes in the barrier island community were evacuated after officials deemed them unsafe.
Nicole pushed a huge volume of water onshore, tearing through infrastructure already strained by Ian.
Storm surge peaked at around 6 feet Thursday morning, sending rising ocean water to the streets, and pushing ashore on top of exceptionally high tides associated with this week's full moon.
Drone video showed homes nearly hanging off cliffs and Daytona Beach hotels crumbling into the ocean in the storm's aftermath.
"The devastation is almost impossible to comprehend- Imagine watching your home collapse into the ocean," Volusia County sheriff Mike Chitwood tweeted.
Nicole is expected to weaken over the next day or two, as it moves into southwestern Georgia then across the western Carolinas.
The system is expected to dissipate as it merges with a frontal boundary over the eastern United States Friday night.
Still, Nicole is expected to produce significant rainfall as it moves northward, possibly bringing flash and urban flooding across portions of the Florida Peninsula, with renewed river flooding on the St. John's River.
Localized flash flooding is also possible across a large area from the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic to western New York.
Up to 4 inches of rain are likely across cities including Jacksonville, Roanoke, Pittsburgh and Syracuse through the weekend, according to CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Nicole was the first hurricane to hit the US during November in nearly 40 years.
