Hurricane (Typhoon) — Indian River, Florida

2004-09-04 to 2004-09-05 · Indian River, Florida

Wider weather episode

The center of category 2 Hurricane Frances reached the Florida east coast near Sewall's Point in Martin County early on September 5th. Frances was moving to the west northwest at 7 mph and maintained hurricane strength as it crossed the east half of the Florida Peninsula. Frances was downgraded to a tropical storm in the afternoon on the 5th when it was about 50 miles east of Tampa Bay. In Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, the slow moving storm produced wind gusts to hurricane strength for about 19 hours, producing an estimated 4.5 billion dollars in damage. Wind gusts well over 100 mph destroyed coastal structures, marinas, and vessels. Farther inland, hundreds of homes, mobile homes, and businesses were destroyed, and thousands were damaged. Highest recorded winds for Martin county were 91 knots (105 mph) at Port St. Lucie Inlet. The highest wind gust in St. Lucie County, was 94 knots (108 mph) at Ft. Pierce and in Indian River County, 70 knots ( 81 mph) in Vero Beach. Brevard and Volusia counties also recorded hours of hurricane force wind gusts from the north side of the storm. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed and damaged, with hundreds of thousands of residences with out power. Brevard was hit with an estimated damage of 90 million dollars. Damage in Volusia County was close to 240 million dollars. Most official NWS surface wind equipment failed prior to the max wind of the storm when power was knocked out. Highest recorded surface winds gust was 78 knots (90 mph) from Merritt Island Airport, although a wind tower at NASA report gusts to 82 knots (94 mph). These winds were likely representative of what most of the beach front areas were hit with. Daytona Beach International Airport recorded a wind gust to 65 knots (75 mph) prior to the power outage. Lowest recorded pressures for Hurricane Frances were, 994.9 mb at Daytona Beach Airport, 995.9 mb at NWS Melbourne, 962.1 at St. Lucie Lock, and 964.7 at Port Mayaca Lock. Beach errosion was moderate to severe from Cocoa Beach to Ft. Pierce, ranging from 5 to 6 feet from south Brevard County to up to 12 feet near Vero Beach where a large section of a beach road was washed out. A storm surge of 5.89 feet MSL was recorded at the St. Lucie Lock. A surge near 6 feet occured near Cocoa Beach ranging to near 8 feet around Vero Beach where onshore winds were the strongest. Radar estimates show as much as 13 inches of rain fell in Volusia County with a range of 6 to 10 inches of rain in the remaining counties. The worst flooding from Hurricane Frances was in Volusia, Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties. Significant inland flooding was reported in Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Brevard counties.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5424912. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.