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Five people died after Hurricane Nicole continued to lash through the Daytona-area in South Florida on Thursday.
Four of the deaths are in Orange County, according to the sheriff’s office. The other is in Brevard County.
Two of those who were killed died after they were electrocuted by a power line which was downed by the 75mph winds generated by the storm.
A man and a woman made contact with a power line in Conway, Orlando, after getting out of a car with an unharmed toddler found in the vehicle according to Orange County Sheriff’s office.
The woman desperately tried to save the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, before she was rushed to hospital and declared deceased. The couple’s now-orphaned child was found in the car.
The sheriff’s office also said that two people were killed in a car crash on Florida’s Turnpike in Orange County.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a two truck driver and a trooper were working on a separate non-fatal crash at the Turnpike around 5:45 am.
The tow truck driver, Paul Paez, 42, from Poinciana, was standing outside of his parked truck with his emergency lights on when a 53-year-old man from Groveland swerved for an unknown reason in his 2000 Isuzu Hombre and struck the truck, which then hit Paez. Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.
In Cocoa Beach in Brevard County, a 68-year-old man died on board his yacht ‘during the peak of Hurricane Nicole,’ Click Orlando reports. The man was on the boat when it broke free from the dock and drifted to sea. When first responders secured the vessel, the man was found dead.
Tow truck driver Paul Paez was among the first people to have been confirmed as dead as a result of Hurricane Nicole
Danny Sonn (L) and Warren Hoganson (R) help homeowner Nina Lavigna salvage what she can from her home after it partially toppled onto the beach as Hurricane Nicole came ashore on November 10, 2022 in Daytona Beach
Residents of Daytona visit the beach to investigate storm damage, including a lifeguard station that was displaced onto a dune
The Category 1 hurricane made landfall on North Hutchinson Island, close to Vero Beach, around 140 miles north of Miami at around 3am, becoming the first to hit the US in November for 40 years
Parts of homes are seen collapsing on the beach due to the storm surge by Hurricane Nicole
The deaths are the first confirmed as a result of Nicole, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Despite the downgrading, the storm continues to make its way up the East Coast.
The Category 1 hurricane made landfall on North Hutchinson Island, close to Vero Beach, around 140 miles north of Miami at around 3am, becoming the first to hit the US in November for 40 years.
While in Volusia County, northeast of Orlando, manager George Reckentwald described the damage along the coastline as ‘unprecedented.’ No deaths have been reported in the county but nearly 20 hotels and more than 40 single-family homes have suffered significant storm damage, with some completely destroyed.
The county’s sheriff, Mike Chitwood, said in a social media post that multiple coastal homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea had collapsed and that several other properties were at ‘imminent risk.’ He said most bridges to the beachside properties had been closed to all but essential personnel and a curfew was in effect.
Krista Dowling Goodrich, who manages 130 rental homes in Wilbur-By-The-Sea and Daytona Beach Shores as director of sales and marketing at Salty Dog Vacations, witnessed backyards collapsing into the ocean just ahead of the storm.
In the aftermath, the backsides of about seven colorful houses along Highway A1A had disappeared. One modern house was missing two bedrooms and much of its living room as water lapped below its foundations. On a partially collapsed wall, decorations spelled out ‘Blessed’ and ‘Grateful.’ Goodrich burst into tears when she saw it.
‘Half of the house is gone, but we did manage to get out family photos yesterday,’ Goodrich said. ‘It is overwhelming when you see this. These are hard-working people who got to this point in their lives and now they lose it all.’
In Daytona Beach Shores, where beachfront bathrooms attached to the city’s Beach Safety Ocean Rescue building collapsed, officials deemed several multistory buildings unsafe and went door-to-door telling people to grab their possessions and leave.
‘These were the tall high-rises. So the people who wouldn’t leave, they were physically forcing them out because it’s not safe,’ Goodrich said.
In this aerial view, a seawall along a condo building is shown breached by Hurricane Nicole
A view from the 18th floor of a condo building shows a condo building damaged when Hurricane Nicole came ashore
A resident rides his bicycle past homes that are partially toppled onto the beach in Daytona after the storm hit
Nicole was sprawling, covering nearly the entire weather-weary state of Florida while also reaching into Georgia and the Carolinas before dawn on Thursday
The homeowners association at the Marbella condominiums in Daytona Beach Shores had just spent $240,000 to temporarily rebuild the seawall Ian destroyed in September, said Connie Hale Gellner, whose family owns a unit there. Live video from the building’s cameras showed Nicole’s storm surge washing the seawall away.
‘We knew it wasn’t meant to stop a hurricane, it was only meant to stop the erosion,’ Gellner said. But after Nicole, the building’s pool deck ‘is basically in the ocean,’ Gellner said. ‘The problem is that we have no more beach. So even if we wanted to rebuild, they’ll probably condemn the building because the water is just splashing up against the building.’
Nicole was sprawling, covering nearly the entire weather-weary state of Florida while also reaching into Georgia and the Carolinas before dawn on Thursday. Tropical storm-force winds extended as far as 450 miles (720 kilometers) from the center in some directions as Nicole turned northward over central Florida
Although Nicole’s winds did minimal damage, its storm surge was more destructive than might have been in the past because seas are rising as the planet’s ice melts due to climate change, said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer.
Hurricane Nicole’s wrath reveals 200-year-old Native American burial site
A skull emerging from the sands at Chastain Beach after the intense winds from Hurricane Nicole
The winds were so intense that they revealed a previously hidden Native American burial site in Martin County, according to their sheriff’s office. Deputies discovered a total of six corpses from the site.
The site was located on Chastain Beach on South Hutchinson Island. A photo posted by the sheriff’s office showed a skull emerging from the sand.
Speaking to WPTV, the person who discovered the site said: ‘I just found a bone laying around, washed up.’
Chief Deputy John Budensiek told the station that the site is over 200 years old.
The director of the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum Tina Osceola said: ‘They are ancestors of the Seminole people. You know, they are our ancestors. That we do know.’
It adds up to higher coastal flooding, flowing deeper inland, and what used to be once-in-a-century events will happen almost yearly in some places, he said.
‘It is definitely part of a picture that is happening,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘It’s going to happen elsewhere. It’s going to happen all across the world.’
More than 330,000 people woke up without power along Florida’s coastline, for the second time in three months, as the clean up mission has started.
At a press conference officials warned that waves could reach between eight and 16 feet along the east coast.
Gov. DeSantis has declared an emergency for at least 45 of the counties and will be adding more ‘out of an abundance of caution’.
He added that 61 school districts have been closed because of the storm, and 600 National Guard troops have been activated and seven urban search and rescue teams on standby.
Portions of A1A in Flagler Beach have been forced to close after parts of the road collapsed into the ocean because of the waves hitting the area.
At least 15 condominiums in Daytona Beach have been evacuated by police over erosion caused by the storm let them at high risk of collapse.
Footage shows the town completely underwater as they try to battle the aftermath of the huge storm surge caused by the Tropical Storm.
Soon after making landfall Nicole was downgraded into a Tropical Storm – hitting Florida with winds of up to 75mph and is now moving in the direction of Georgia and South Carolina.
Bride-to-be Tiffany Trump is said to be ‘flipping out’ as the hurricane heads towards post Palm Beach, with her father’s swanky Mar-A-Lago estate being evacuated until Friday evening.
Torrential rain is still expected to hit for her wedding on Saturday, but winds are expected to have calmed down before the big day.
Staff were sent home according to Page Six, with Tiffany and her fiancé, billionaire heir Michael Boulous, remaining at the resort with her family.
A source said: ‘They’ve sent staff home. Tiffany is still there. Some guests came in for the week, and they had all these things planned.
‘It was going to be a whole over-the-top thing. They had to cancel events today and canceled a golf outing for tomorrow. Everyone is stuck inside.
‘Friday is supposed to be a welcome dinner and they aren’t sure it’s going to happen … Tiffany is flipping out.’
Trump’s Florida home is within the National Hurricane Center’s forecast of uncertainty, with forecasters expecting some wind and rain from the storm to hit the location.
Tiffany, the daughter of former President Trump and his ex-wife Marla Maples, has reportedly invited at least 500 people for the wedding who are flying in from all over the globe.
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