Hurricane Nicole Florida Residents Survey Damage After Storm Hits State Kills At Least 4 And Collapses Homes As It Moves North

  Florida residents are picking up the pieces again after Nicole slammed into the state on Thursday, killing at least four people, toppling buildings and leaving some homes uninhabitable as it was brought down by dangerous storm surge and strong winds.   

  Nicole hit Florida’s east coast just south of Vero Beach as a Category 1 hurricane in the early morning hours before weakening to a tropical storm and then a depression.  It arrived as the state was still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Ian, which tore a path of destruction across Florida after battering the West Coast just weeks ago.   

  Nicole was the first hurricane to hit the US in November in nearly 40 years.   

  As the colossal storm approached, schools and universities were closed, hundreds of flights were canceled, airports shut down and some coastal residents were evacuated.   

  After Nicole passed, streets flooded, roads and homes were damaged, and thousands were left without power.  More than 300,000 customers in Florida were affected by outages earlier.  That number had dropped to more than 50,000 early Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.   

  Two people have died after being “electrocuted by a downed power line” in Orange County, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.   

  Two additional deaths are being investigated as possibly storm-related after a fatal car accident, according to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.   

  Downed power lines on flooded roads are among the many hazards residents must face in the hurricane’s wake as they return to their homes and crews work to clear debris from roads and make emergency repairs to washed-out roads.   

  Nicole weakened into a depression Thursday night, according to a 10 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center.  The receding storm has headed north, moving into southwest Georgia early Friday.  It is expected to cross the western Carolinas later Friday.   

  Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis extended the state of emergency to all counties “just because we’re not sure of the extent of the impact, particularly in Northwest Florida,” he said Thursday morning.   

  In Volusia County, at least 49 waterfront properties, including hotels and condos, have been deemed “unsafe” in Nicole’s wake.   

  “The structural damage along our coastline is unprecedented,” County Manager George Recktenwald said at a news conference, adding that more buildings will likely be identified as exposed.   

  Coastal buildings destroyed by Ian were further endangered 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 enveloped the area, oceanfront homes in Wilbur-By-The-Sea – a barrier island community in Daytona Beach – collapsed into the ocean.   

  Resident Trip Valigorsky unlocked the front door of his home to see a gaping hole leading to crashing ocean waves where his living room once stood.  He pointed to where the TV and couch were.   

  He was shocked, he told CNN affiliate WKMG.   

  “I was here Tuesday night and I saw the wall wearing away 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 has pushed a huge volume of water ashore, ripping through the infrastructure already strained by Ian.   

  The storm surge peaked at about 6 feet Thursday morning, sending rising ocean water onto roads and pushing ashore on top of extremely high tides associated with this week’s full moon.   

  Drone video shows houses nearly hanging from cliffs and Daytona Beach hotels collapsing into the ocean after the storm.   

  “The devastation is almost impossible to fathom – Imagine watching your house collapse into the ocean,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood tweeted.   

  Nicole, now a tropical depression with maximum winds of 35 mph, is churning 20 miles north of Tallahassee, Florida, according to a 10 p.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center.   

  The storm is expected to weaken over the next day or two as it moves into southwest Georgia and then across the western Carolinas.  Nicole will likely become a posttropical cyclone on Friday, according to CNN meteorologist Gene Norman.   

  The system is expected to dissipate as it merges with a frontal boundary over the eastern United States on Friday night.   

  However, Nicole is expected to produce significant rainfall as it moves north, potentially bringing flash and urban flooding to parts of the Florida peninsula, with renewed river flooding in the St.  John’s.   

  Localized flash flooding is also possible over a large area from the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic to western New York.   

  Up to 4 inches of rain is possible in cities including Jacksonville, Roanoke, Pittsburgh and Syracuse over the weekend, according to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.   

Today’s GOES-E GeoColor satellite images are rather impressive, helping to display the two main weather news across the country. Tropical Storm Nicole is currently battering the Southeast and a powerful cyclone in the Northern Plains is bringing a major winter storm to the region. pic.twitter.com/nc0OTsZ0Lz — NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) November 10, 2022 As Nicole’s remnant tracks north Friday through Saturday, its tropical moisture will be absorbed by a separate cold front that is currently bringing blizzard conditions to the northern plains, according to Van Dam.

  Heavy rain and gusty winds in excess of 30 mph will make travel along the I-95 corridor difficult.  Meanwhile, air travel will likely be disrupted at many East Coast airports as the storm moves through.