Hurricane Nicole barrels into Florida’s Atlantic coast

MIAMI, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Hurricane Nicole barreled into Florida’s Atlantic shoreline early on Thursday with a brew of heavy downpours, fierce winds and a treacherous surge of ocean surf that threatened coastal areas nonetheless reeling from the final main storm six weeks in the past.

Nicole was upgraded from a tropical storm to a Class 1 hurricane because it thrashed the Bahamas on Wednesday. It was packing sustained winds of as much as 75 mph (120 kph) because it made landfall alongside the east coast of Florida north of Miami, in response to the Nationwide Hurricane Heart.

The storm slammed ashore round 3 a.m. EST at Vero Seashore, about 100 miles from the prosperous resort metropolis of Boca Raton.

A hurricane warning was posted for a 240-mile coastal stretch that included the Kennedy Area Heart at Cape Canaveral, the place NASA’s massive, new moon rocket stood uncovered to the weather and anchored to its launch pad to journey out the storm. learn extra

The hurricane heart additionally issued storm-surge advisories for a lot of Florida’s Atlantic coast, warning that wind-driven waves would wash over seashores and rush inland to flood low-lying areas effectively past the shore.

Storm surges wreaked havoc alongside the state’s Gulf Coast and its jap seaboard when Hurricane Ian crashed ashore on Sept. 28 and plowed throughout the Florida Peninsula to the Atlantic, inflicting an estimated $60 billion in injury and killing greater than 140 individuals.

Nicole is anticipated to pack much less punch at landfall than Ian, which struck Florida as a significant Class 4 storm. Authorities warned, nevertheless, that Nicole nonetheless posed a formidable risk, particularly to buildings and coastal foundations weakened by Ian.

“Dozens upon dozens” of oceanside buildings in Volusia County, together with high-rise condominiums, have been declared structurally unsafe since Ian, with some now “in imminent hazard of collapsing” from additional shoreline erosion, Sheriff Mike Chitwood stated.

‘LAST OPPORTUNITY’

Volusia was certainly one of a number of coastal counties the place officers issued necessary evacuation orders or suggested residents in oceanside communities and barrier islands to hunt greater floor.

“That is the final window of alternative to safe your households and to safe your properties and presumably avoid wasting lives,” Chitwood stated in a video posted on-line on Wednesday.

State officers opened 15 emergency shelters throughout the area, activated 600 Nationwide Guard troops and positioned 1,600 utility staff on standby to revive energy knocked out by the storm.

Greater than a dozen college districts had been closed on Wednesday and greater than 20 college districts throughout the state had been scheduled to be shuttered on Thursday. Orlando Worldwide Airport introduced it was ceasing industrial operations on Wednesday afternoon.

Even earlier than reaching hurricane power, the storm unleashed “intensive flooding” throughout a lot of the Bahamas, together with the islands of Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Andros and the Abacos, Nationwide Emergency Administration Company chief Captain Stephen Russell instructed a information convention.

The storm was declared a hurricane Wednesday night because it made its first landfall on Grand Bahama island within the northwestern nook of the Atlantic West Indies archipelago nation.

Nicole was anticipated to decrease to tropical-storm standing as soon as it strikes over Florida, then churns north over the subsequent two days by Georgia and into the Carolinas.

Whereas some “storm vacationers” in Florida ventured out to glimpse the roiling surf, pose for cyclone “selfies” or seize a video clip of the gathering storm on Wednesday, many spent the day battening down property and stocking up on provides.

“We’ve got had lots of flooding throughout the final couple of storms,” Leanne Hansard, 53, a Daytona Seashore resident, stated as she was boarding up home windows to her household’s insurance coverage workplace. “Florida is surrounded by water on all sides, so finally you are going to have water.”

Reporting by Brian Ellsworth in Miami; Further reporting by Jasper Ward in Nassau, Sandra Stojanovic in Daytona Seashore, Fla. and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Wealthy McKay in Atlanta; Writing and extra reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; modifying by Mark Heinrich

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