Officials assessing oceanfront properties devastated by Nicole, trying to help

DAYTONA BEACH — As most central Florida residents were picking up a few stray branches in their yards and taking down hurricane shutters Friday, Kate and Tom Rose continued to live their Tropical Storm Nicole nightmare.

Their Wilbur-by-the-Sea home – once a little slice of paradise with its oceanfront patio, grassy yard and beach-level tennis court on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean – is now perched precariously on the edge of a sandy cliff.

One thundering wave after another from Tropical Storm Ian in late September chewed up half of their backyard and knocked down part of their sea wall. Then the relentless storm surge from Nicole this past week did the unthinkable and devoured everything up to the back wall of their split-level home.

"It's hard to look at it," Kate Rose said Friday afternoon.

As the Roses tried to wrap their heads around losing close to 70 feet of their property and how they'll come up with $500,000 for repairs, assuming their home doesn't topple down into the waves first, dozens of other property owners along Volusia County's coastline were also struggling Friday to figure out what to do next.

Homes, hotels and towering condominiums from Ponce Inlet north to Ormond-by-the-Sea are all in limbo as their owners scramble to get structural engineers to inspect their properties and figure out how to save their buildings.

What's the latest on Tropical Storm Nicole?: Friday live updates on Nicole: What you need to know in Volusia, Flagler counties

Volusia County's Wilbur-by-the-Sea unknown to most people: Where is Wilbur-by-the-Sea, site of so much destruction from Tropical Storm Nicole?

Nicole devastates Wilbur-by-the-Sea: 'Hit with a bomb:' Nicole's fury washes away homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea

Daytona Beach Chief Building Official Glen Urquhart spent the better part of Thursday and Friday inspecting oceanfront buildings and city properties between Bellair Plaza and Silver Beach Avenue.

He saw severe damage to most of the beach approaches, seawalls, pools, Boardwalk and staircases leading down to the sand.

"The majority of damage was pools and seawalls that will have to be totally replaced," Urquhart said.

'What used to be their backyard is just gone'

While many people have seen the devastation Nicole inflicted on waterfront homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, where Weather Channel meteorologists entrenched themselves for live reports most of Wednesday and Thursday, Daytona Beach also has buildings that could crash onto the beach if they lose any more sand beneath them.

"About 70-100 feet of beach sand is totally gone on some vacant properties," Urquhart said.

He also talked to oceanfront homeowners who lost 50-70 feet of their backyards between Wednesday and Friday.

"What used to be their backyard is just gone," Urquhart said.

He said four houses now have the edge of the dune line right up to their foundation's slab.

The city is helping property owners line up engineers who can inspect their land and buildings, Urquhart said.

Hotels and condos also lost their pools and seawalls, but he's less worried about those structures because many of them each have hundreds of 100-foot-deep auger cast piles driven deep into the sand.

Many Daytona Beach hotels and condominiums evacuated the people staying in them when the full fury of Nicole became apparent. Before they can return, the owners will need letters from structural engineers saying it's safe to be in the building, Urquhart said.

The good news for Daytona Beach was the only area that saw serious flooding was along the downtown riverfront. During Ian, multiple areas of Daytona Beach were devastated by floodwaters that reached up to four feet.

A heartbreaking storm aftermath

Kate Rose's parents bought their oceanfront Wilbur-by-the-Sea home in 1983. Her mother died about 12 years ago, and 10 years ago when her father's health began to decline she moved into a garage apartment on the property.

On Sept. 23, four days before Tropical Storm Ian began sweeping through Volusia County, her 92-year-old father died inside his seaside nirvana. She's glad he didn't see the devastation Ian and Nicole were about to inflict.

"This would have broken his heart," she said. "He loved this home."

Sheriff's deputies ordered Rose and her husband to evacuate the house within 15 minutes on Thursday, and then they spray painted an orange zero on their garage to indicate there was no one living there.

The couple decided to return nonetheless, and they're living in the garage apartment that's closer to the road and on more solid ground. They're still hopeful the house can be saved.

The Roses suspect a 50-foot gap in the seawall just south of their property contributed heavily to the house damage along their road. The gap is where a county government beach walkover is located, and the Roses contend that the lack of a seawall there created an opportunity for the storm surge and waves to do more damage.

"Residents have asked the county to protect that gap," she said.

She said the county indicated residents could pay for a seawall if they wanted one there.

She said the ocean water "churns like a washing machine" in the gap and pulls sand out to sea.

She said there wasn't enough time between Ian and Nicole to repair her 85-foot-long seawall. Now the couple has a much bigger problem with repairs, and they're trying to figure out how to manage financially at a time they hoped to wind down soon and retire.

But they're going to try to stay.

"We love it here. It's home," she said.

Daytona Shores condo dwellers in limbo

As of Friday afternoon, it was still not known when residents of the evacuated oceanfront condominium buildings in Daytona Beach Shores will be allowed to return.

It's possible that some might never be allowed to resume living in them, according to officials with South Daytona engineering consulting firm Ellis & Associates Inc.

"It's really a case by case situation," said Victor Saltas, branch manager for Ellis & Associates, who along with geotechnical engineer Max Kemnitz agreed to speak generally, but not about specific buildings.

"If half the house is already in the water, like we've all seen on television, there's nothing you can do," said Saltas, referring to the seven oceanfront homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea that slid into the ocean on Thursday following Tropical Storm Nicole.

Kemnitz, who has worked on a number of oceanfront condo high-rises in the Daytona Beach area over the years, said the first thing that needs to be done to salvage the condo buildings and hotels that have been deemed unsafe "is to stop any erosion. Once water causes a loss of sand to where the foundation is exposed, it depends on the level (of damage)."

"You might add some additional concrete piles and reinforce the existing foundation," he said. "I've seen some buildings move as much as six inches but with proper supports, they were able to be repaired."

Kemnitz said building a temporary seawall as quickly as possible also could help.

"Each situation is different. It's going to depend on the amount of erosion, how much the building might have moved and the type of foundation system," he said. "Some foundations are shallow and more easily affected by erosion. Some foundations, however, are much deeper and more able to withstand it. Most often, condo high-rises have deeper foundations. But it depends on the ground, too."

Evacuated condos still undergoing damage assessments

The wait continues for residents of the condominium buildings ordered to be evacuated in Daytona Beach Shores during Tropical Storm Nicole.

City spokeswoman Nancy Maddox, in a phone interview shortly before noon on Friday, said it was still uncertain when the 24 condominium buildings and hotels in Daytona Beach Shores would be deemed safe to allow residents and guests to return.

"All of the condos have hired structural engineers to do assessments and give their reports to our chief building official," said Maddox, public affairs director for Daytona Beach Shores.

She added that the assessment work, much of which was done by United Engineering, began on Thursday.

When asked if any of those assessments might be completed on Friday, Maddox said, "I'm not an engineer so I can't say."

The oceanfront buildings that were ordered to be evacuated included some that were deemed unsafe by the city on Thursday, hours after Tropical Storm Nicole had passed through the area.

Tropical Storm Nicole flooding surprises Port Orange

In Port Orange, rising waters from the Halifax River had covered Ridgewood Avenue by Thursday morning.

In the Dunlawton Bridge area, businesses close to the water could only hope that the flooding would not cause too much damage.

In the Down Under area on the east side of the bridge, several businesses are almost always affected by storms like Nicole. It was no different for the Two Jerks Seafood market.

"Ironically we kind of thought we were going to make it out more or less lucky," said Two Jerks co-owner Mike Freeman. "The first high tide before the storm was ready to come ashore really didn’t have much flooding at all. About eight hours later (at 1 p.m. Thursday), the second high tide started to roll in and took about 30 minutes until water went from half a foot under the dock to covering all the way over to Jimmy Hula’s and the parking lot."

Freeman said there was approximately six inches of water inside his store yesterday.

"We had actual waves coming all the way from Deck Down Under (a restaurant across the parking lot area) right up into the side of the building," he said. "The entire property basically became a river."

Despite the water, the store didn’t have any major losses in produce or equipment. He took Friday to clean up and get ready to reopen.

"It could have been a lot worse," Freeman said.

Rose Bay seawall collapse

While residents around the Ridgewood Avenue area also saw water rise on their streets, the Cambridge Canal neighborhood was on edge on Thursday morning after they learned that the Rose Bay seawall and bank were compromised, threatening to flood hundreds of homes north and south of Wiltshire Boulevard.

A resident at Trailwood Drive, Lisa Davids, said she and her family heard about the threat from police officers, who knocked on her door at around 7:30 a.m. alerting her to the danger.

"We weren’t expecting anything big, given the expectation of rain was only 5 inches," Davids said on Friday. "And then we get the knock and I go, 'Well, the lake looks high,' but it hadn’t crested over yet. But within an hour, (the water) was already within a foot of our house."

She said that the water didn’t get past that point, and that the home didn’t sustain any damage from flooding.

"How fast (the water) came in was scary. It got real high," Davids said. "We were concerned, so we didn’t know how much farther the water was going to come up with the tide and storm surge, but we did ok."

Davids said she and her family got "dressed and ready" to evacuate after the police warning, but decided to keep an eye on the water and ultimately stayed.

The water in the neighborhood did start to recede as the afternoon came, according to Port Orange Mayor Don Burnette.

Burnette told The News-Journal on Friday that there hasn’t been "any additional flooding during the high tide cycles Thursday night and Friday morning."

"The swelled water level in Rose Bay has reduced slightly and thus the tides haven’t been working against us, giving us the time we need," he said.

A temporary fix to the problem is underway, with supplies expected over the weekend to finalize the process early next week. The city will then start working on a permanent repair.

Nicole wallops Flagler, too

Flagler County reported an estimated $23.7 million in damages as a result of Tropical Storm Nicole, according to a release sent Friday.

Of the total, Flagler Beach recorded $13.3 million in damages, while Beverly Beach recorded $1.2 million and unincorporated Flagler County estimated $9.2 million.

Flagler County did not report any destroyed homes; however, 299 homes were affected by the storm. While these numbers will likely change, 125 sustained minor damage and 20 had major damage. Some 218 homes were flooded.

Editor Ashley Varese and staff reporters Clayton Park and Brenno Carillo contributed to this report.

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Tropical Storm Nicole leaves devastation in Daytona, Volusia County