BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Hurricane Nicole created a memorable night for Florida residents as the historic storm battered the state, carved away at the coastline and collapsed houses into the Atlantic Ocean.
Most people chose to hunker down and brave the storm from the comfort of their homes, however, Spencer and Elissa Kissell, of Brevard County, were having a memorable night of their own as they headed to Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center to give birth to a baby boy.
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Elissa Kissel was 9 months pregnant and scheduled to have a C-section on Nov.15, but baby Asher decided to come earlier than expected, regardless of what Mother Nature had planned.
“My contractions started getting stronger and I was hoping and wishing we could wait out the storm as long as possible,” Kissell said.
At 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Spencer and Elissa strapped their sleeping daughter into the backseat of their car and headed to drop her off at her grandparent’s house during the peak of Hurricane Nicole.
“The drive was a little stressful,” Spencer Kissel said. “I had a screaming wife in the front seat, our daughter in the backseat trying to sleep, and (I was) just trying to get to grandparent’s house to drop her off and then head to Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center.”
Just north of the Kissells, much of Volusia County, including Daytona Beach Shores, Wilbur-By-The-Sea and New Smyrna Beach, was little by little crumbling away into the ocean.
According to Elissa Kissel, her coworkers might have been the ones to jinx baby Asher into the world before his planned due date.
“I said to them to not say that and sure enough he did come during the hurricane,” Kissell said. “But we’re going to have quite the story to tell him one day.”
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