Tropical Storm Nicole causes high waves in Bahamas

Tropical Storm Nicole forced people from their homes in the Bahamas and threatened to grow into a rare November hurricane in Florida on Wednesday, shutting down theme parks and airports while prompting evacuation orders. Hundreds of people sought shelter in the northwestern Bahamas before the approaching storm, which had already sent seawater washing across roads on barrier islands in Florida.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of the sprawling storm make landfall on Great Abaco island around midday with estimated maximum sustained winds of 70 mph.Nicole is the first storm to hit the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the archipelago in 2019, before hitting Florida.

Officials said that more than 520 people were in more than two dozen shelters. The storm is then expected to move across central and northern Florida into southern Georgia on Thursday, forecasters said. It was then forecast to move across the Carolinas on Friday.