Nov. 10 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Nicole came ashore Thursday south of Vero Beach. It left power outages and other damage in its wake as it headed north into Florida toward the Georgia and South Carolina coasts.
The Treasure Coast faced maximum sustained winds of 75 mph as well as heavy rains that caused downed trees, flooding and beach erosion as thousands of homes lost power from the storm. The strongest wind impacts were in Brevard County, according to meteorologist Brandan Schaper.
The storm left more than 237,000 customers without power in Florida as of 8:44 a.m.Thursday morning. Vero Beach had boardwalk damage with heavy winds, rain, flooding and beach erosion as businesses were closed and shuttered.
“It seems that the south end of the boardwalk does seem to get a lot more erosion than anywhere else,” Vero Beach resident Mark Wheeler said Wednesday. “In the last two hours, I was able to walk my dog here and now you see the sidewalk’s falling in.”
Nicole partially collapsed a Daytona Beach Shores ocean safety building, according to Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood. He said dozens of buildings on the beach side were damaged with structural issues and mandatory evacuations were in place.
Sheriff Chitwood posted a video of the damage.
Nicole briefly became a Category 1 hurricane as it made landfall, then quickly weakened back to a tropical storm. It is expected to continue to weaken as it moves over Georgia Thursday.
