Pier’s End Collapses, More Flagler Areas Evacuated, 70% of County Without Power, Dunes Damaged

A flash flood warning for the county has been extended to 9 p.m., with areas already affected in northeastern Flagler County.

“As heartbreaking as it is to many, the destruction to the end section of the Flagler Beach Pier was inevitable on many levels,” Scott Spradley, a barrier island resident who is weathering the storm on the island, and took the picture above, wrote this afternoon after capturing the image. The pier was slated for demolition in a few months, to be replaced by a concrete pier. But this was not the kind of end planned for it. The pier had already been sheared off by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and was a shadow of its former self.

Flagler Avenue in Flagler Beach was again a 1-foot deep river just after 4 this afternoon, as it had been in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma five years ago, when water from the Intracoastal Waterway flooded homes, streets and the avenue:

A similar scene was captured in Palm Coast’s B-Section, on Burroughs Drive:

Continued onshore flow, combined with elevated tides, trapped water in. the Intracoastal Waterway, and rounds of heavy rainfall are causing flooding issues in St. Johns and Flagler counties as Tropical Storm Ian moves up the Atlantic coast. The storm is expected to reform into a hurricane over the next few hours.

The National Weather Service in Jacksonville cautions that more rainfall and onshore winds are on the way this afternoon and evening in Palm Coast and surrounding regions, and water levels along the Atlantic Coast, the Intracoastal, and the St. Johns River will continue to rise through Friday., even though those waters are already well higher than normal.

Hurricane conditions are possible over Atlantic waters parallel to Flagler Beach, with strong tropical storm force winds and gusts to hurricane force along the coastline. These winds can down trees, especially where the ground is wet from the rainfall, which can lead to power outages. Palm Coast officials have been getting increasing reports of downed trees and power lines as the day has progressed. Several trees, some of them stately oaks, have toppled in Town Center only in the last two hours.

38,350 customers out of 66,910 Flagler County customers–57 percent of the county–were without power as of 3 p.m., even after the restoration of power to 9,370 customers.

Flagler County officials around midday extended evacuation orders to include Palm Coast’s Woodlands. As conditions worsened, they have extended evacuation orders yet again. Those orders now include: residents of Bulow Mobile Home Park, Flagler Beach Polo Club West, Bulow Woods, Seaside Landings, Flagler Beach Polo Club, as well as the previously evacuated areas off of Lambert Avenue and Palm Drive – also known as Hurricane Evacuation Zone  B – to leave immediately due to expectations of significant flooding.

“We urge residents in these areas to leave immediately due to updated expectations of significant flooding and the potential to impact your homes,” said Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord. “Additionally, as the flooding progresses it is possible that emergency vehicles will no longer have access to your neighborhood.”

Residents are urged to go to friends or family or to a shelter at Rymfire Elementary, 1425 Rymfire Drive, Palm Coast. Residents utilizing shelters are encouraged to bring their own bedding. Single/twin size inflatable mattresses are preferred due to the space limitations.

Residents in Bunnell and Palm Coast are also being urged to severely restrict water usage to emergencies only, so overwhelmed sewer systems can catch up. “We have no storage for wastewater,” said Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson. Palm Coast has many areas on an electricity dependent pep tank system. When the power fails, the pep tank system cannot operate, and can backup. Flooding exacerbates the problem. 

 “It is critically important for everyone to limit their water usage right now,” said Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord. “We understand it is inconvenient but it’s for the good of the whole county.”

“We definitely have localized flooding in numerous sections in Palm Coast,” Brittany Kershaw, the city’s chief spokesperson, said. But the stormwater system has been holding up.

Ken Bryan, who chairs the Flagler Beach City Commission, lives in a relatively new home on Palm Drive, about 6 to 7 feet above sea level. Palm Drive is among the areas ordered evacuated. At close to 4 p.m. today, he said the water was rising both in the marsh behind his house and on the Intracoastal. “It’s not as bad as it was doing in Matthews, but it’s pretty bad,” he said. The wind had felled five trees on his own property alone, including two live oaks. But “the city is doing ok other than the pier,”  he said. “I’ve heard something about some parts of A1A may be compromised, but I can’t confirm yet.” There are no reports of injuries. “People have been looking out for each other.”

Looking at Florida as a whole, President Biden to day said that while officials are still assessing the damage, there were indications of “what may be substantial loss of life” in the state.

Thursday, 12:35 p.m.–Tropical Storm Ian exited Florida late this morning, only to immediately begin picking up speed again and reform as a soon-to-be hurricane as it moves up parallel to the Flagler coast, the National Hurricane Center predicted at 11 a.m., lashing it with tropical storm-force winds and crashing its shore with damaging waves.A flash flood warning has been issued for the majority of Palm Coast and parts of Bunnell until 3:15 this afternoon.

The storm had left Florida near Titusville with winds of 65 miles per hour. By 11, when it was in the Atlantic, 25 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral, it was again at 70 miles an hour, 4 miles an hour short of hurricane status. The storm’s rain and wind bands were battering Flagler County and more especially the barrier island, where waves are crashing over A1A and causing portions of A1A northbound to close because of small boulders in the road. The highway itself was painted red in large swaths because of sand washing over from the beach.

Flagler Beach’s avenues west of A1A are quickly becoming a tangle of downed and dangerous power lines. The ocean tide was peaking at noon. The Intracoastal tide is to peak a few hours later. Residents who stayed on the evacuated island are bracing for likely flooding. “The water level behind my house (South 23rd Street area) continues to rise and has nearly breached the seawall. Likewise, the roads in the area are beginning to flood,” wrote Scott Spradley, the Flagler Beach attorney who has been contributing regular reports from the island since the beginning of the storm. (See Spradley’s Beachside Blog here.)

Conditions on the mainland are comparatively better, if not by much. A drive from the mainland to the beachside is like a drive into another world of hazards, flooded streets and sharply gustier winds. Conversely, the drive back to the mainland resembles something more akin to a severe afternoon storm that doesn’t stop. Consequently, the rain has been the issue.

At 11 a.m., county officials expanded evacuation orders to Palm Coast’s Woodlands, the older neighborhood south and east of Old Kings Road and Palm Coast Parkway, east of I-95.




“We urge residents within the Woodlands neighborhood to leave the area due to updated expectations of significant flooding of your neighborhood streets, with the potential to impact your home,” said Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord. “Additionally, as the flooding progresses it is possible that emergency vehicles will no longer have access to your neighborhood.”

Residents are encouraged to stay with friends or relatives outside of the Woodlands or go to the public shelter at Rymfire Elementary School (1425 Rymfire Drive, Palm Coast) that just opened to the general population as the city of Bunnell’s water utilities are taxed. Residents are asked to leave as soon as possible as peak flooding will occur overnight. The earlier shelter for the general population, at Bunnell Elementary, had some 85 guests this morning.

The Woodlands are the scene of some of the more dramatic tree falls yet: a large tree crashed into a home on Blare Castle Drive, puncturing the roof. These images are from the Palm Coast Fire Department:

 

At midday today a drive through Town center, State Road 100 and some residential neighborhoods revealed passable streets with considerable pooling in parts, a lot of small debris carpeting roadways, especially next to undeveloped lots, but nothing like the web of downed lines on the island or entirely waterlogged streets. Swales, though overflowing, are doing their job, even as the canal levels are very high.

There were symbolic sights of resilience, like “Burro With a Bird,” the 10-foot high bronze sculpture by artist Copper Tritscheller, which stood calmly against the storm’s whipping rains and winds at midday today in Palm Coast’s Central Park. A few dozen yards away at City Hall, where the parking lot looks almost as full as if it were a regular work day, a large contingent of city employees were hunkered down in City Hall’s chambers, operating the city’s emergency operations center.

[This is a developing update. More soon.]

Thursday, 10:26 a.m.–Locally, there are increasing reports of downed trees, downed power lines and worrisome signs of a tidal event ahead, along the Intracoastal Waterway: “The river has almost reached the road and low tide is at 10,” former Flagler Beach City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur, who remained on the barrier island and is keeping an eye on several properties he owns there, said this morning. “Gonna be ugly at high tide.”

As of 10 a.m., a third of Flagler County’s customers were without power–26,370 households and businesses, according to Florida Power and Light.

The Palm Coast Fire Department was out at sites of downed trees:

‘We’ve Never Seen a Flood Event Like This’: Tropical Storm Ian Creates ‘Massive Impacts’

Thursday, 9 a.m.–Daylight was sharpening a reckoning with the devastating impacts of Hurricane Ian, now Tropical Storm Ian, from Southwest Florida across Central Florida and into Volusia and Flagler counties as the storm was readying to leave the Florida Peninsula at Titusville.