Nicole weakens to tropical storm after making landfall in Florida
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Nicole made landfall in Florida early Thursday morning on the east coast of the state near Vero Beach but almost immediately weakened to a tropical storm.
The storm still brought heavy rains and sustained winds of up to 70 mph and the National Hurricane Center continued to warn of dangerous storm surges and tropical storm conditions. More than 274,000 people were without power Thursday, though that number went down throughout the day, and more than a dozen school districts remained closed.
“This is obviously not as significant a storm as Hurricane Ian was, but coming on the heels of that, you’re seeing communities, particularly in the Volusia County area, where you had a lot of beach erosion on the coastline,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday during a press briefing. “This has put some of those structures in jeopardy.”
The state Division of Emergency Management has summoned 600 members of the Florida National Guard, 16,000 electric-utility crews and seven urban search and rescue teams ahead of Nicole making landfall. DeSantis on Thursday expanded a state of emergency for all 67 counties in the state, and officials ordered around 120,000 people in Palm Beach to evacuate.
The storm destroyed 10 homes and one small historic hotel along the Atlantic coast before it propelled itself toward the Gulf Coast along the Big Bend region with 50 mph winds. Volusia County officials said 40 homes and 19 condos or hotels have been "compromised" by the storm, meaning they were damaged or will be in need of an engineering inspection.
Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie said Thursday that a seasonally higher-than-normal high tide and choppy surf also worsened the storm surge from Nicole.
“We’re probably going to continue to see that,” Guthrie said. “There are a lot of homes where their back porch is now overhanging the dunes.”
While potentially dangerous, Nicole is not expected to be as powerful as Hurricane Ian, which slammed into Florida’s west coast in late September as a Category 4 hurricane. That hurricane initially left more than 2 million without power and caused catastrophic damage along some coastal areas, including in Lee County where the storm made landfall.
At least 125 people were killed by hurricane Ian, many by drowning.
Eric Silagy, CEO and chair of Florida Power & Light Co., said Thursday afternoon that more than 280,000 of his utility's customers had their power restored but about 150,000 remained without power.
"Look, I know many Floridians are fatigued with Hurricane Ian just six weeks ago and now Hurricane Nicole," Silagy said. "But I want you to know we are continuing to battle the storm. We are going to continue make sure we get the lights on."
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson James Yocum said the storm does not pose a risk to the strengthened Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee. Communities around the lake were evacuated during Hurricane Irma in 2017 because of the threat to the flood control dike.
But the agency said with the lake at nearly 16 feet above sea level there may need to be discharges to lower the lake and protect dike. Those discharges in the past have been blamed for algae that has forced the closure of beaches and killed sea life.
