The rare November hurricane had already prompted officials to close airports and theme parks and order evacuations that included former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Authorities warned that Nicole’s storm surge could further erode many beaches hit by Hurricane Ian in September. The major storm is then forecast to head into Georgia and the Carolinas later Thursday and Friday, dumping heavy rain across the region. Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort said they likely won’t reopen as planned Thursday, hoping for a “phased reopening” in the afternoon. Palm Beach International Airport closed Wednesday morning, and Daytona Beach International Airport announced it would suspend operations. It also closed Orlando International Airport, the seventh busiest in the US. Further south, officials said Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport experienced some flight delays and cancellations, but both planned to remain open. Some Thursday flights to Orlando, Tampa and Miami departing from Pearson Airport near Toronto and Montreal’s Trudeau Airport were canceled or delayed. Airlines in the United States canceled 1,220 flights early Thursday. Delta Air Lines, American Airlines Group and Southwest Airlines canceled more than 100 flights each, while United Airlines suspended 73 trips, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. Daniel Brown, senior hurricane specialist at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, said the storm will affect much of the state. “Because the system is so large, almost the entire east coast of Florida except for the extreme southeast and the Keys will receive tropical storm-force winds,” he said. 4 a.m. EST November 10 Key messages for pic.twitter.com/QWk3GZMT1w —@NHC_Atlantic Nicole had maximum sustained winds of 110 km/h early Thursday, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The storm was about 95 kilometers southeast of Orlando. It was moving west-northwest near 22 km/h. Tropical storm force winds extended up to 720 km from the center in some directions. Nicole is expected to cross central Florida Thursday morning, possibly emerge in the far northeastern Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon, and then move across the Florida Panhandle and Georgia late Thursday and Friday.
Tornado Warnings
A few tornadoes will be possible by early Thursday across east-central to northeast Florida, the weather service said. Flooding and urban flooding will be possible, along with renewed river rise in the St. Johns, across the Florida peninsula on Thursday. Heavy rainfall from this system will spread northward across parts of the Southeast, eastern Ohio Valley, mid-Atlantic and New England by Saturday. Large swells created by Nicole will affect the northwestern Bahamas, the east coast of Florida, and much of the southeast coast of the United States in the coming days. Police patrol the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk as conditions worsen as Hurricane Nicole approaches Wednesday in Hollywood, Florida (Wilfredo Lee/The Associated Press) Additional weakening is forecast as Nicole moves inland over the next day or two, and the storm is likely to become a tropical depression in Georgia late Thursday or early Friday. Nicole became a hurricane Wednesday night as it hit Grand Bahama Island, after making landfall hours earlier on Great Abaco Island as a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 110 km/h. It is the first storm to hit the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the archipelago in 2019. For storm-weary Floridians, it’s just the third November hurricane to hit their shores since record-keeping began in 1853. The previous ones were Hurricane Yankee in 1935 and Hurricane Kate in 1985.
The White House signs the disaster declaration
Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and home, was in an evacuation zone, built about a quarter-mile inland from the ocean. The main buildings sit on a slight rise that is about 4.5 meters above sea level and the property has survived many stronger typhoons since it was built nearly a century ago. The resort’s security office hung up on Wednesday when an Associated Press reporter asked if the club had been evacuated, and there was no sign of one as of Wednesday afternoon. There is no penalty for ignoring an evacuation order, but rescue crews will not respond if it puts their members at risk. Officials in Daytona Beach Shores have deemed unsafe at least a half-dozen high-rise, coastal residential buildings already damaged by Hurricane Ian and now threatened by Nicole. In some locations, authorities went door to door telling people to grab their belongings and leave. At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis said winds were the biggest concern and that major power outages could occur, but that 16,000 linemen were on standby to restore power as well as 600 guards and seven search teams. and rescue. “It’s going to affect huge parts of the state of Florida throughout the day,” DeSantis said of the storm’s expected landfall. Nearly two dozen school districts were closing schools because of the storm, and 15 shelters had opened along Florida’s east coast, the governor said. A car drives through a flooded road ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Nicole in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Wednesday. (Marco Bello/Reuters) Forty-five of Florida’s 67 counties were under a state of emergency. Early Wednesday, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local storm response efforts. Hurricane Ian brought a significant storm surge in late September, causing widespread destruction and killing dozens of people.
