Searching for treasure: Brevardians and others hit beaches after Hurricane Nicole
Despite warnings from Brevard County Emergency Management to avoid the beach over the weekend, and even though Hurricane Nicole-driven erosion has damaged access to much of Brevard's coast, hundreds took to the shores Saturday to look for treasures and surf the stormy waves.
Early Saturday morning, Roger Bellz walked the shore just north of the Westgate Cocoa Beach Pier, metal detector in hand. While the Virginia resident was hoping to strike gold, he said he'd only found "a lot of junk."
Filled with similar hopes, David Johnson of Orlando and his sister scanned the sand with metal detectors just south of the Westgate Pier. They had found 27 cents, but were continuing their search.
Later in the day, at Paradise Beach in Melbourne, Sandy Conboy was out with her sister looking for sea glass and trash. The two had driven over from St. Cloud to walk the beach and had found a small handful of green and brown glass.
"We do (this) regularly," she said, saying she and her sister come to the beach about once a month.
In one hand, Conboy carried a pole with a small strainer at the end, an instrument she had fashioned to help her sift through the sand for sea glass and small bits of trash. In the other, she held a crushed piece of metal with sharp edges. She wasn't sure what it was, but expected it might have been a Budweiser can.
"If somebody with no shoes steps on that, they're going to get hurt, so I'm just holding onto it until I get to a garbage can," she said.
One of the crossovers to the beach was temporarily closed Saturday, but it didn't stop a crowd of about 100 from scattering across the sand to bask in the sun, play in the water and walk the shore.
But not everything was calm on the beach. About 100 yards from where Conboy and her sister stood sifting through the sand, two surfers worked to pull a group of five swimmers from a rip current and helped keep them safe for about 10 minutes until lifeguards arrived.
Rip currents were just one reason that Brevard County Emergency Management Director John Scott advised against going to the beach over the weekend.
"We continue to have hazardous beach conditions, rip currents, high surf, large waves, and we may even have some debris in the water," Scott said during a briefing Friday afternoon. He added that many beaches had crossovers that were damaged and erosions that left "pretty big cliffs" in the sand.
"It's really just not a good weekend to go to the beach," he said. "We want folks to avoid that."
The two Indialantic surfers, Steve Trentadue and Elliott Grozan, go to the beach every day and sometimes face hazardous conditions. They said rip currents are a common danger while they're out on the water and it's important to know how to get out of them.
"People don't realize that you can't swim in, you've got to swim parallel," Trentadue said.
"No one's above (rip currents)," Grozan said. "Not even the strongest swimmers."
Though Paradise Beach and many parts of Cocoa Beach had minimal damage, other areas of Brevard County didn't fare so well.
As of Friday afternoon, the county received 175 reports from individuals about storm damage they sustained.
However, Scott said that after 23 county damage assessment teams fanned out throughout the county Friday to survey for residential and business impacts from Nicole, they found much of the county had survived the storm without much impact.
"The general sense was we fared very well as a county, especially once you get off of those that are right on the beach line," Scott said.
Brevard County officials are encouraging people whose property or home has sustained damage as a result of Nicole to submit photos or a description of the damage. (A damage assessment self-report form can be found on this link: https://www.crisistrack.com/public/brevardFL/request.html)
The county also said 73 people have requested help through a Home Cleanup Hotline that has opened to help people who experienced damage from Hurricane Nicole. People needing assistance can call 800-451-1954.
Volunteers may be able to assist with cutting fallen trees; drywall, flooring and appliance removal; tarping roofs; and mold mitigation.
"That is a service that connects volunteer organizations with any resident who has damage, and doesn't either have the ability or the means to recover from that damage," Scott said. The service is free, but not guaranteed.
Staff writer Dave Berman and staff photographer Malcolm Denemark contributed to this report.
Finch Walker is a Breaking News Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at 321-290-4744 or fwalker@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @_finchwalker
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Treasure hunters and surfers hit Brevard beaches after hurricane
