Seven Beach Homes Fell Into the Ocean — What a 75 mph Storm Did That a 150 mph One Couldn't

On the morning of November 10, 2022, the house at 4101 South Atlantic Avenue in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, just south of Daytona Beach Shores, Florida, fell into the Atlantic. Six more homes on the same block followed before the day was over. The storm, Hurricane Nicole, made landfall 110 miles away with 75 mph winds that never reached this coast. What took the houses was the dune that was no longer there: Hurricane Ian had stripped it exactly six weeks earlier, and the beach never had time to rebuild. In this video: • How a sand bluff works as a sacrificial reservoir — and what happens when the next storm comes before the sand returns • Ian's north-east fetch: the highest water hit Volusia a full day after the storm had moved on • Erosion rates that nearly doubled: 35 → 45 → 65 cubic yards per foot of shoreline • A full-moon eclipse king tide stacked on 3.68 ft of surge and 12-ft breakers • Why slab houses went down with the sand while condo towers on pilings stood • Seawalls that failed by overtopping, undermining and flanking through unwalled gaps • $481M → $522M in damage, 6.6 million cubic yards of sand lost, $82.7M in state sand money • Zero from homeowner's insurance, $660,000 seawall bids, and one house rebuilt on 55 pilings three years later ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Thursday Morning, High Tide 2:56 Ian Comes in the Back Door 6:12 The Moon Loaded the Gun 10:10 A Cliff Made of Sand 12:55 Towers That Stood, Decks That Fell 16:38 Zero Dollars From Insurance 19:27 Six Weeks #WilburByTheSea #DaytonaBeach #HurricaneNicole #BeachErosion #FloridaCoast