VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – Officials with the Florida Division of Emergency Management gave News 6 a look at the coastline in Daytona Beach Shores on Wednesday, nearly a week after Hurricane Nicole.
“What it took was the combination punch of Hurricane Ian that came through. It did a lot of damage, and then when Nicole came through it exacerbated the problems that the beach was already having,” said Jimmy Bujeda, FDEM deputy director and SERT chief.
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During a ride-a-long on Thursday, Bujeda explained how multiple seawalls were washed away with infrastructure buried under the sand.
He said replacing the dunes will be the challenging part of the recovery.
“There wasn’t enough time to do anything to mitigate the next storm that came through,” he said.
Several buildings that were evacuated because of erosion danger have now been inspected and cleared by the city, but more than a dozen in Daytona Beach Shores remain on the unsafe list.
Bujeda said coastal engineers and FEMA workers will be working and assessing over the next few days, adding that the road to recovery could take years.
“I feel for the community, honestly, I know there’s been a lot of history here. Now you just see the loss of the history to see the loss of infrastructure for the community,” Bujeda said.
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