Tropical Storm Nicole topples Florida beachfront homes into ocean

Tropical Storm Nicole hit Florida as a hurricane Thursday, washing away the remaining protections for a stretch of beachfront properties that lost their seawall during Hurricane Ian only weeks before.

In Daytona Beach Shores, surging ocean water threatened the foundations of at least a dozen high-rise condos and houses.

The storm covered nearly the entire weather-weary state of Florida early Thursday while also reaching into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Damaging winds extended as far as 450 miles (720 kilometers) from the center in some directions as Nicole turned northward over central Florida Thursday morning.

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Officials in Daytona Beach Shores deemed multiple multi-story coastal residential buildings unsafe, and went door-to-door telling people to grab their possessions and leave.