Hurricane Nicole makes for rare November storm in Fla.
MIAMI — A Florida-bound storm strengthened into Hurricane Nicole on Wednesday after pounding the Bahamas, as officials ordered evacuations in several Florida counties.
It’s a rare November hurricane for storm-weary Florida, where only two such hurricanes have made landfall since record-keeping began in 1853 — the 1935 Yankee Hurricane and Hurricane Kate in 1985.
Nicole was expected to reach Florida on Wednesday night and unleash a storm surge that could further erode beaches hit by Hurricane Ian in September before heading into Georgia and the Carolinas later Thursday and Friday. It was expected to dump heavy rain across the region.
Nicole’s center was located 100 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida, on Wednesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and was moving west at 13 mph.
The sprawling storm became a hurricane as it slammed into Grand Bahama, having made landfall just hours earlier on Great Abaco island as a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph.
Nicole is the first storm to hit the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the archipelago in 2019.
In the Bahamas, officials said more than 860 people were in more than two dozen shelters. Extensive flooding, downed trees and power and water outages were reported in the archipelago’s northwest region.
Authorities were especially concerned about a large Haitian community in Great Abaco that was destroyed by Dorian and has since grown to 200 acres.
“Do not put yourselves in harm’s way,” said Zhivago Dames, assistant commissioner of police information. “Our first responders are out there. However, they will not put their lives in danger.”
In Florida, the St. Lucie County Sheriff ’s Office said in a tweet that storm surge had already breached the sea wall along Indian River Drive, which runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. The
Martin County Sheriff’s office also said seawater had breached part of a road on Hutchinson Island.
Residents in Florida’s Flagler, Palm Beach, Martin and Volusia counties were ordered to evacuate such barrier islands, low-lying areas and mobile homes. Volusia, home to Daytona Beach, imposed a curfew.
In Palm Beach County, some 400 people checked into seven evacuation centers. One was Hidir Dontar, a software engineer carrying some of his belongings. He said he didn’t want to stay in his apartment because the landlord wasn’t putting shutters over the windows, which didn’t feel safe having lived through “one bad one,” 2004’s Hurricane Frances.
“I didn’t want to be in the middle of the storm, have something go wrong and wonder, ‘What do I do now?’ ” Dontar said.
Meanwhile, officials in Daytona Beach Shores deemed unsafe at least a half dozen coastal, multistory residential buildings already damaged by Hurricane Ian. At some locations, authorities went door to door telling people to grab their possessions and leave.