VERO BEACH, Fla. – A boardwalk in Vero Beach was damaged overnight as then-Hurricane Nicole made landfall just south of the city.
While the center of the now-tropical storm has moved north, Vero Beach was still experiencing heavy winds and rain from the storm’s outer bands on Thursday morning.
A Local 10 News crew was at Jaycee Park early Thursday morning and saw a sidewalk that had collapsed, leaving no access to the damaged boardwalk.
The high tide overnight left signs of erosion behind on the beach.
As of Thursday morning, the waves were still roaring because of the outer bands.
Businesses in the heart of the tourist district shuttered up Wednesday and grocery stores even closed early in preparation for the storm.
Conditions started to deteriorate earlier in the day before things got worse overnight.
“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.”
Water flooded the streets overnight, and while it has receded a bit, there’s still plenty of damage, but officials say they feel like they were spared the worst.
“This is the worst of it, if you will, not much structural damage, not a whole lot of debris,” Vero Beach police chief David Currey said. “Because, of course, Ian helped us out with the debris from the storm a few weeks ago, but on the mainland pretty unscathed. Some localized flooding, but not too bad overall.”