Hurricane Nicole was upgraded to a Category 1 storm late Wednesday after making landfall in the Bahamas.
Nicole struck Grand Bahama Island around 6 p.m. and began walloping the tiny island locale with “dangerous storm surge and strong winds” that are whipping at around 75 milers per hour, the National Hurricane Center reported.
More than 500 people in the Bahamas had been evacuated from their homes and into shelters as the storm approached, officials said. Flooding and power outages were reported in Grand Abaco, where Nicole passed through as a Tropical Storm earlier Wednesday.
Michael Brennan, the acting NHC Deputy Director, said Nicole is expected to hit Florida along the east-central coast “somewhere in the vicinity from Palm Beach up to the Treasure Coast” late Wednesday or early Thursday morning.
Nicole is then expected to move northwest across Florida towards the Gulf of Mexico before making its way into the southern Appalachians Friday, Brennan said.
Though Nicole is still over 100 miles from Flordia, the state has already seen storm surge flooding along the east coast, Brennan said.
The Melbourne National Weather Service warned Floridians along the coast to steer clear of beaches as water levels are expected to swell.
Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a state of emergency for 34 counties in preparation for Nicole’s landfall in the Sunshine State.
Some counties ordered evacuations for mobile homes, barrier islands and low-lying areas and at least four school districts canceled classes for Thursday and Friday.
“We have 16,000 linemen staged, 600 guardsmen activated, and 7 Urban Search and Rescue teams on standby to deploy,” DeSantis said on Twitter.