Nicole slammed into Florida as a Category 1 hurricane early Thursday, leaving thousands of residents without power. According to monitoring site Poweroutage.us, almost 110,000 Floridian homes and businesses were hit by blackouts just after 5 a.m. local time. The hurricane made landfall on North Hutchinson Island around 140 miles north of Miami around two hours earlier, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph and powerful storm surges causing flooding along the state’s east coast. Reports of damage to buildings and infrastructure have already started to emerge after mandatory evacuation orders were issued for several areas of Florida. Nicole comes after Hurricane Ian devastated huge parts of the state and left scores dead in September.
