Vero Beach Hurricane Record, 1999 to 2024

FEMA records 13 hurricane major disaster declarations that include Indian River County, the county around Vero Beach, from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 to Hurricane Milton in 2024.

The list below comes from the OpenFEMA declarations data for Florida, filtered to Indian River County and to hurricanes (OpenFEMA disaster declarations). In eight of the 13, FEMA also opened its individuals and households program; Ivan was the only one of the 13 without public assistance.

Two things stand out in the Vero Beach record. Four of the 13 declarations come from a single season, 2004, when Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne all drew declarations that named Indian River County. And the Frances declaration is dated September 4, 2004, the day before landfall, which shows that a declaration date is not a storm date (OpenFEMA). The two 2022 storms, Ian and Nicole, and Dorian in 2019 carried public assistance only.

Frances and Jeanne both came ashore at the southern end of Hutchinson Island, south of Vero Beach, three weeks apart in September 2004, and both brought hurricane-strength gusts to Vero Beach.

Frances made landfall near 0430 UTC on September 5, 2004, as a Category 2 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center report. The NWS Melbourne office estimated the storm surge at 8 feet near Vero Beach, higher than its 6-foot estimate around Cocoa Beach, and two wind towers in Vero Beach recorded peak gusts of 71 and 73 knots (NHC Hurricane Frances report).

Jeanne followed at 0400 UTC on September 26, 2004, with the center of its 50-nautical-mile eye crossing the coast at the southern end of Hutchinson Island just east of Stuart and maximum winds at landfall estimated at 105 knots over a very small area north of the center. NHC says hurricane-force sustained winds covered a swath about 90 nautical miles wide, from near Cape Canaveral south to near Stuart, a stretch that takes in Vero Beach. A gust of 106 knots, about 122 mph, was reported from Vero Beach, while the highest gust reported in Florida was 111 knots at Fort Pierce Inlet, and the Vero Beach airport station (KVRB) logged 5.08 inches of rain (NHC Hurricane Jeanne report).

The FEMA data show how the season stacked up for Vero Beach: Jeanne's declaration, DR-1561, was dated September 26, 2004, the same day as landfall and ten days after the Ivan declaration (OpenFEMA).

Hurricane Matthew stayed offshore, weakening to Category 3 strength around 0600 UTC on October 7, 2016, when its center was about 35 nautical miles east of Vero Beach.

Matthew's center stayed off the Florida coast, and the National Hurricane Center report describes beach erosion as moderate from Palm Beach County northward to Indian River County, and moderate to severe in many places from Brevard County to the St. Mary's River (NHC Hurricane Matthew report). That put the Vero Beach shoreline at the northern end of the moderate zone, just south of where the worse erosion began in Brevard County. FEMA declared Matthew a major disaster for Indian River County on October 8, 2016, as DR-4283, with both individual and public assistance (OpenFEMA).

Irma in 2017 and Dorian in 2019 followed with declarations of their own for Indian River County, DR-4337 and DR-4468 (OpenFEMA).

Yes: Hurricane Nicole made landfall on the Florida coast at Vero Beach at 0745 UTC on November 10, 2022, with a landfall intensity estimated at 65 knots.

The National Hurricane Center report says sustained hurricane-force winds were limited to the waters off the coast, and that Nicole weakened to a tropical storm after the Vero Beach landfall as it crossed the peninsula between Orlando and Tampa toward the Gulf coast near Homosassa (NHC Hurricane Nicole report). The report also says Hurricane Ian, in late September 2022, had already eroded beaches along the east coast, and that this likely left the area more vulnerable to Nicole's surge.

For Vero Beach the two 2022 storms are one event on the beach. FEMA declared Ian on September 29, 2022 and Nicole on December 13, 2022, both for public assistance only in Indian River County (OpenFEMA), and the county later rebuilt the Vero Beach shoreline under a single project named for both storms (see the beach repair section below).

Hurricane Milton in October 2024 brought an 11.60-inch rain total to a site near Vero Beach and, during a 45-tornado outbreak, an EF-3 tornado near Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The National Hurricane Center report notes a pocket of heavier rain along parts of the southeast Florida coast, where a CoCoRaHS volunteer site near Vero Beach reported a storm total of 11.60 inches. Milton set off 45 known tornadoes on land on October 9, 2024, and the report names the most significant as an EF-3 near Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, to which it attributes six deaths (NHC Hurricane Milton report).

FEMA declared Milton a major disaster on October 11, 2024, as DR-4834, with individual and public assistance for Indian River County; it is the most recent hurricane in the county's declaration list (OpenFEMA).

Indian River County rebuilds the Vero Beach shoreline as Sector 5 of its beach program, and the most recent rebuild, the Sector 5 Hurricane Ian and Nicole project, was completed in March 2026.

The county defines Sector 5 as a 2.6-mile reach inside the City of Vero Beach whose northern edge sits about half a mile north of Tracking Station Beach Park and whose southern limit sits about a quarter mile south of the Riomar Beach Access by the Riomar Golf Course, and the county calls it the most densely developed part of its coast (Indian River County beach management sectors). The county Beach Preservation Plan recommends beach and dune renourishment there on a 5 to 7 year cycle, depending on funding. The same page lists a critically eroded segment of 3.1 miles along the northern section of Vero Beach, between survey monuments R-70 and R-86, where erosion has led to seawalls on part of the shore.

The Ian and Nicole project placed 115,901 cubic yards of beach-compatible sand and planted 117,500 native dune plants, and Tracking Station Beach Park served as one of the main construction access points (Indian River County beach and dune restoration). South of Riomar, Sector 6 is a different story: the county says that 2.0-mile stretch to Treasure Cove Lane is growing, so the plan calls only for semi-annual beach profile surveys (Indian River County).

The Vero Beach weather hub and the Vero Beach hurricane season guide cover preparation; this page is the storm record. Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the OpenFEMA declarations data, the National Hurricane Center storm reports and the Indian River County coastal engineering pages.