After days of waiting for the moment when Hurricane Dorian would make its debut on American shores, Floridians are now beginning to weather the infamous storm.
It reached Florida on Tuesday after a period of devastating the Bahamas and is expected to create inclement weather conditions for much of the coastal southeastern United States.
While most people know to take the threat of a hurricane seriously, it’s easy to forget that its powerful winds can sweep up all sorts of random objects and carry them great distances. And the most unusual reminder of this effect recently occurred in Florida.
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This morning, Hurricane Dorian reached maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour.
As The Daily Mail reported , it’s also expected to bring between five to 10 inches of rain to North and South Carolina, three to six inches in Florida and up to nine inches in parts of Georgia.
This rain could result in deadly flash floods.
At Paradise Beach in Melbourne Florida, however, the hurricane’s high winds brought something else to the coast.
A citizen in the area flagged down a Melbourne police officer and reported that a “suspicious” package had washed ashore.
It turned out they were right to be suspicious as the officer would discover that the package was “wrapped in a way that was consistent with narcotics.”
Also of interest was the label on the package, which likely read “diamantes,” the Spanish word for diamonds.
But while the contents of the package were clearly valuable to somebody, they weren’t diamonds.
As The Daily Mail reported , tests would later confirm that it contained a kilogram of cocaine.
Although that’s about as far as Melbourne police would comment on the ongoing investigation, Paradise Beach wasn’t the only site for this kind of discovery.
Within hours of the Melbourne discovery, a duffle bag was reported to have washed up on Cocoa Beach 20 miles north of the city.
In it, police found 15 kilograms of cocaine, which were then turned over to U.S. Custom and Border Protection officials.
Depending on the the purity of the drugs inside, the combined street value of these finds could total at over $400,000.
The investigation into their source remains ongoing.
h/t: The Daily Mail
