Tropical Storm Nicole's effects on Daytona: What's the future hold? - Daytona Beach News-Journal

DAYTONA BEACH — The Boardwalk has a yawning 875-square-foot crater. Wooden decking on the eastern end of the pier that reaches out into the Atlantic Ocean looks like randomly scattered toothpicks.

Oceanfront homes and their dunes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea look like they've been shredded by some freakish combination of a tornado, tsunami, earthquake and hurricane.

Shocking photos and videos of what Tropical Storm Nicole did to Volusia County's coastline this month spread across the United States and even into other countries as quickly as people could post them on social media and news outlets could publish them on their websites and set up for live shots.

The ferocious waves and wind that created the destruction stopped pounding the shoreline two weeks ago. But are the images of charming waterfront homes teetering on the edges of sandy cliffs and hotel decks getting sucked out into the ocean still running through people's minds?

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Will tourists, snowbirds and people thinking about moving to Florida remember what they saw nearly every time they turned on the Weather Channel Nov. 9 and 10 and decide to steer clear of the Daytona Beach area?

Will the local economy take a hit? The east Volusia inventory of hotel, condominium and vacation rental units will be diminished while property owners tackle major repairs. 

Dozens of Daytona Beach-area hotels, some of which were declared unsafe, are closed while they undergo extensive repairs to decimated seawalls, pools and guest rooms soaked with water damage. Some hotels that are open have no pools or beach access. 

County government officials are continuing to urge people to stay off the beaches because there are still so many steep drop-offs where waves eroded dunes, dangerous debris is getting tossed around in the waves and badly damaged staircases and walkovers could collapse.

Daytona Beach-area hotel, tourism and business leaders know the lingering damage will make some people skittish about visiting the region for a while, and they worry about layoffs in service sector jobs.

With some beachside hotels and restaurants shut down or only partially open, tourism-dependent employees in east Volusia County could find themselves laid off before Christmas.

At least a few hoteliers and gift shop owners say they don't expect a prolonged problem, and they're hopeful out-of-towners will be back in force early next year.  

Two area economics professors predict the pain will be more severe and longer lasting, although neither foresees a protracted boycott of the area.

'Long term the Daytona area will be fine'

University of Central Florida Economics Professor Sean Snaith doesn't think this year's storm damage is going to divert people away from the World's Most Famous Beach for long.

Snaith, who runs the Institute for Economic Forecasting at UCF in the Orlando area, estimates hesitation about visiting or moving to the Daytona Beach areawill fade in about six months.

In 2017 when Hurricane Irma plowed through Florida, his institute did an analysis of the history of hurricanes in the state and the economic impact the storms had on affected counties.

The UCF researchers saw a loss of jobs, with leisure and hospitality positions taking the biggest hit as people canceled their trips to Florida vacation spots.

"There will be a period that those (tropical storm) images are fresh and people will go to different areas," Snaith said. "But usually in two to three months there's a recovery with jobs with construction needed to repair damage."

It can take about six months after a hurricane or tropical storm passes for travel and real estate business to recover, he said.

"Long term I think there's really little impact," said Snaith, who has lived in Florida for 16 years. "People know Florida gets hit with hurricanes from time to time, and it doesn't seem to keep them away."

He said the repeated live shots of Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore standing on the Dunlawton Avenue beach approach before and during Tropical Storm Nicole will fade in people's memories in time.

Once beaches are restored, repairs are made and businesses open back up "people forget about it."

"Long term the Daytona area will be fine," Snaith said.

The Fort Myers area took a vastly larger blow with Hurricane Ian in late September with a massive storm surge and roaring 150 mph winds. But that area has already made strides in repairs to its infrastructure and is working to return to normalcy.

He said some businesses and residents may leave southwest Florida, but "one to two years from now it won't matter much" that a Category 4 hurricane mutilated beach towns along the Gulf Coast.

He said more people might opt to live inland in places such as The Villages to dodge the worst destruction a hurricane can inflict and to avoid having to evacuate. But the chance to live on the Gulf of Mexico or the shores of the Atlantic Ocean will continue to draw chilled northerners, Snaith contends.

"People will forget about all the drama," he predicted.

'A lot riskier to build and buy a home'

Home in Wilbur-by-the-Sea collapses into ocean

Pounded by the surge and wind from Tropical Storm Nicole, a home in Wilbur-by-the-Sea falls into the Atlantic Ocean.

David Tucker, Contributor

Stetson University Economics Professor Alan Green has a less sunny view of what's ahead for the Daytona Beach area in the post-Ian-and-Nicole era.

"Living beachside just got more expensive with rebuilding and insurance," said Green, who lives in DeLand. 

The severe oceanfront damage will also reinforce some people's worst fears of climate change and spur them to choose less risky areas to live, he said. It might also make some question the safety of oceanfront buildings.

"We'll need to reassure people it's safe, especially after Surfside," Green said, referring to the June 2021 collapse of a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside that killed 98 people. "We can prevent that if we take the right steps."

Day trippers will still come to east Volusia County, but visitors looking for a place to stay overnight might be more rattled now about sleeping in an oceanfront building, he said.

Green sees a hit coming to the local real estate market, which is already slowing with rising mortgage loan rates. Insurance, including flood insurance, will become more difficult and expensive to secure, he predicted.

During Tropical Storm Ian in late September, Volusia County had severe flooding in places that normally don't flood at all or only accumulate small amounts of water that typically dissipates quickly.

"Will banks keep writing mortgages on houses if they don't have flood insurance, or even if the property just has a history of flooding?" Green asked. "It's looking a lot riskier to build and buy a home or condo in Florida than just few months ago." 

People's comfort level visiting and moving to Florida will increase if there isn't another damaging hurricane or tropical storm in the next few years, he said. But if there is, it will just feed fear that's out there now.

"It's a question of if we can adapt enough and if the buildings are safe," Green said. "If buildings can be repaired and we survive, maybe people will get more confidence."

Could tourism drop spur Volusia layoffs?

As the powerful waves churned up a few weeks ago by Tropical Storm Nicole pounded on the Volusia County coastline, Daytona Beach area real estate investor Krista Goodrich watched helplessly as oceanfront properties in Wilbur-by-the-Sea that she manages teetered on the edge of sandy cliffs. The dunes beneath the homes were rapidly being devoured by the ocean, and a few eventually toppled into the waves.

She posted videos of some of her oceanfront properties on Facebook, and the images went semi-viral.

Goodrich, who's also a Realtor and Main Street bar owner, wound up doing 100 interviews about her devastating losses with media outlets ranging from ABC and NBC to CNN to The Weather Channel. She also talked to local reporters, and images of the destruction the storm left on east Volusia's oceanfront were shown everywhere from Seattle to Toronto, and from Australia to Germany.  

She said part of her motivation for going on the interview spree was to let the world know that the Daytona Beach area had just suffered terrible losses and needed help.

The help didn't come fast enough for one of Goodrich's companies, which manages 150 properties. The company normally handles 10 rental bookings per day, but dropped down to three for the entire week after Nicole swirled out of Florida.

"We processed $50,000 in refunds yesterday alone," Goodrich said last week. "We likely will not be able to keep all of our staff through the end of the year."

She said she has "multiple properties that are not viable to rent out," and some of the rentals that came through the storms OK have lost their appeal since it's difficult or impossible to access the beach.

She's worried about the damage Ian and Nicole are doing now to east Volusia County's tourism.

"Our only industry is tourism, and rentals-based tourism," she said. "What do we do if we don't have tourism? Our community should do all it can to welcome people back, and we have to rebuild."

She's concerned that the people who work in tourism-reliant jobs – such as hotel employees, restaurant workers, bartenders and gift shop clerks – could be facing layoffs in the coming weeks. And she's even wondering if some businesses will be able to stay open.

She does believe the Daytona Beach area will rebuild, and will possibly come out better if enough government assistance flows into the area and new construction adheres to the best standards for weathering storms.

"We just learn and build smarter," Goodrich said. "We could be the city we always wanted to be."

She also hopes the Daytona area is advertised so people know most of Volusia County came out of the two tropical storms without major damage and is open for business.

Several local agencies and organizations are already on that.

'Impressions we'll have to market against'

Lori Campbell Baker, executive director of the Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, said her board has already brainstormed messaging ideas with the CVB's contracted advertising agency.

They're battling forces like the New York Times, which included Volusia County's storm damage in one of its stories about Hurricane Nicole.

"At the time it was exciting, but then you realize those are impressions we'll have to market against," Baker said.

Soon after Tropical Storm Nicole left the area, the CVB fielded calls from people asking if the area was "wiped away," Baker said.

The national spotlight only focused on the Daytona Beach area for a few days, and most people outside of Florida have probably stopped thinking about the storms, Baker said. And some people probably didn't even follow news coverage of hurricanes Ian and Nicole, she said.

The CVB, the Daytona Beach area's primary tourism promotion organization, is trying to get potential visitors to focus on things like the annual Daytona Turkey Run car show at Daytona International Speedway and other local holiday events. 

The CVB is using social media to try to reach people and let them know there are plenty of fun things to do away from the coast such as kayaking and hiking.

"There are hotels and businesses who need the business," Baker said.

The CVB also needs the hotel business. The CVB is overseen by the Halifax Area Advertising Authority, which uses tourism bed-tax revenues collected from area hotels and short-term vacation rental properties to market the area as a destination for tourists and special events via the CVB.

With so many hotels closed for repairs, the CVB is listing hotels that are open on its website. There are nearly 200 hotels with roughly 20,000 rooms in east Volusia County, and many more vacation rentals available through Airbnb and Vrbo, she said.

Some hotel rooms 'off the market'

Nancy Keefer, president and CEO of the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce, echoed Baker's comments about making it clear that the storms haven't paralyzed Volusia County.

"I think it's a real issue we need to be concerned about as we look at our message going forward," Keefer said. "The CVB is working really hard to find that balanced message."

Keefer said she's not worried about what the Daytona Beach area has on its horizon.

"I know how resilient this community is," she said.

One of the immediate challenges will be getting hotels repaired and reopened. Some are partially open with limited rooms for rent, and others don't have a pool or beach access.

"There will be a number of rooms off the market until next year, or maybe longer," Keefer said.

Some coastal restaurants are also digging out of the damage to their properties.

"Those are real issues when you have an economy based on tourism," she said. "It's a real potential there could be layoffs of waitresses and bartenders if tourism drops off. And if there are fewer room tax dollars, it will be harder to market the area."

Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Hotel & Lodging Association of Volusia County, said several hotels already had to take "lots" of employees off of their payrolls. The Plaza Resort & Spa on North Atlantic Avenue, which is undergoing a major renovation, laid off 150 employees, Davis said.

Keefer is hopeful people will still want to get out of the snow and cold this winter and visit Daytona Beach.

'People have short memories'

The 740-room Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort emerged from the back-to-back tropical storms with minimal problems such as limited water intrusion and landscaping damage, said Jim Berkley, the hotel's general manager for the past seven years.

"We did have some damage, but we're fully operational," Berkley said. "It's extremely busy here now and into 2023. My bookings for group events have not dropped off at all."

He said people are calling to make sure Daytona Beach is OK because they still want to come, not cancel their trip. And he expects to stay busy.

"People's style of booking is not from news of a month ago," he said. "My gut: I don't see anybody wanting to take a vacation two months from now and completely passing over the (Daytona area) location." 

Berkley also doesn't foresee snowbirds and people looking for a Florida home avoiding the Daytona Beach area because of Ian and Nicole.

"People have short memories," he said. "The story of Nicole dominated national and local news for a few days, and then it goes away as they cover other things."

Volusia County has had hurricanes for as long as the county has existed, and that hasn't stopped people from visiting and moving to the area, Berkley pointed out.

"Ian came through here and we had one of the most successful Biketoberfests two weeks later," he said, referring to the annual October motorcycle gathering that draws thousands of bikers every year.

Longtime beachside business owner Gary Koliopoulos isn't worrying much either about the aftereffects of Ian and Nicole. 

"Do people remember it? I doubt it," said Koliopoulos, who has owned the Beach Express souvenir shop on the corner of South Atlantic and Harvey avenues for more than 30 years.

"It won't matter in the future," said Koliopoulos, who noted that his shop had much less damage than it did with Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017. "People will still buy property. We're in Florida. The weather is not your friend sometimes, but this is where people want to be."

He pointed out that the Florida Keys and the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina get hit by storms again and again, yet people live and visit there.

Can Volusia get enough workers, materials and engineers to rebuild?

Both tourists who had been staying in coastal Volusia hotels and local residents who live at least part of the year in oceanfront condominiums had to evacuate when city and county building officials determined Tropical Storm Nicole had made their buildings' safety questionable.

Thousands of people, some of them elderly, suddenly had to find another place to stay. Time will tell if that will be enough to make any of them want to choose other parts of Florida's coasts for their future trips or full-time homes.

Daytona Beach Shores Mayor Nancy Miller believes most displaced condo dwellers in her city just want to go back home, not move.

"I don't think it'll have a lasting impact," Miller said. "They love this area of Florida."

Most snowbirds have already settled into Volusia County, and she doesn't expect them to head back north until spring. The winter residents who haven't arrived yet might decide to sit out this year's snowbirding, Miller said.

Davis said a lot of the displaced condo dwellers wound up in the remaining open hotel rooms. When Florida Power & Light asked him to find hotel rooms for workers in town to fix storm-related power outages, Davis said he came up dry and the workers wound up sleeping at the Ocean Center. 

Davis said "a lot" of conventions had to be canceled because they're typically held in the city's oceanfront hotels.

He worries that hotels trying to rebuild will be held up by difficulties gathering all needed materials and trouble finding enough construction workers and structural engineers.

"The El Caribe (Resort & Conference Center) opened with 100 rooms, but there's no elevator service because they can't get parts for the elevator," Davis said.

Money and insurance are also in short supply for some hotels.

"A hotel owner called me almost crying," Davis said. "He has no insurance for a seawall, and seawalls cost big money."

He said some local hotels will probably go out of business, but he's getting calls from people interested in buying distressed hotels so they might not shut down forever.

While the Plaza Resort & Spa probably won't reopen for six to nine months, most other Daytona-area hotels should be welcoming guests again in time for races at the Speedway in late January, Davis said. 

'The sand will be redeposited over time'

At least some developers are still counting on people wanting to live and vacation in coastal Volusia County. They're carrying on with plans to build new condominiums and hotels on Daytona's oceanfront.

Daytona Atlantic Development is still pursuing construction of a 304-room hotel on vacant property at 1201 S. Atlantic Ave., located at the eastern tip of Silver Beach Avenue.

On the north end of Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach, a property across from Steve's Famous Diner is still being targeted for a 29-story condominium despite about 60 feet of the lot washing out into the ocean with Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole.  

Lifelong Daytona beachside resident Paul Zimmerman said it would help the area if local residents would stop saying "our beach is gone forever."

"I've lived here a long time. The sand will return," the 73-year-old Zimmerman said. "Daytona Beach will still be here next summer."

He said some people are also saying this will be the end of beach driving, something Zimmerman fights to keep alive as president of the Sons of the Beach organization.

Prior to Tropical Storm Ian, the Flagler Beach area 35 miles up the coast was eroded and under threat, he said.

"After Ian, the ocean decided to deposit 10-15 feet of red coquina sand," Zimmerman said, and noted that Tropical Storm Nicole didn't wash it away.

"The waves rolled right over it and deposited more sand," he said. "Mother Nature will do what she will do."

Zimmerman said the Daytona Beach area has lost the slope of the beach and about 10-15 feet of elevation. The beach has just become flat, he said.

"The sand will be redeposited over time," Zimmerman said. "The beach will open again."

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com

Tropical Storm Nicole's effects on Daytona: What's the future hold? - Daytona Beach News-Journal