A Brazilian fisherman is thanking a floating freezer for saving his life.

Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues says he's lucky to be alive after he spent 11 days alone at sea floating inside a cooler after his boat sank off the coast of Brazil, Record TV reported.

Rodrigues told the news outlet that he set out for a 3-day fishing trip last month when he noticed his boat was sinking.

As the vessel went down, he saw the freezer and jumped inside it, the news outlet reported.

For 11 days, Rodrigues, who doesn't know how to swim, floated alone in the Atlantic Ocean without food or water.

He told the news outlet that sharks surrounded the freezer, and water began seeping into the cooler, but he never gave up hope that he would be rescued.

According to Record TV, on the 11th day, he heard a boat, so he stuck his arms so they could see him.

The news outlet reported that a group of fishermen found him off the coast of Suriname.

The media outlet reported that he was treated at a hospital and detained by officials for a few days because he didn't have the proper documentation.

But he was later released and has since returned home to be with his family, Return TV reported.

The live video above is from sister station WESH in Orlando, Florida

Tropical Storm Nicole is forcing people from their homes in the Bahamas and it threatens to grow into a rare November hurricane in Florida on Wednesday. It has made landfall in the Bahamas and also has shut down airports in Florida.

This is a breaking news update. The previous story follows below.

Hundreds of people sought shelter in the northwestern Bahamas before the approaching storm, which had already sent seawater washing across roads on Hutchinson Island in Martin County, Florida.

“We are forecasting it to become a hurricane as it nears the northwestern Bahamas, and remain a hurricane as it approaches the east coast of Florida," Daniel Brown, a senior hurricane specialist at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, said Wednesday.

Nicole is the first storm to hit the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the archipelago in 2019, before hitting storm-weary Florida.

In the Bahamas, officials said that more than 520 people were in more than two dozen shelters. Flooding and power outages were reported in Abaco island.

“We are asking people to please take it (seriously),” said Andrea Newbold with the Disaster Management Unit for Social Services. “Don’t wait until the last minute.”

Video below: Palm Beach County orders mandatory evacuation zones

Residents in several Florida counties — Flagler, Palm Beach, Martin and Volusia — were ordered to evacuate from barrier islands, low-lying areas and mobile homes.

Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and home, is in one of those evacuation zones, built about a quarter-mile inland from the ocean. The main buildings sit on a small rise that is about 15 feet above sea level and the property has survived numerous stronger hurricanes since it was built nearly a century ago. The resort’s security office hung up Wednesday when an Associated Press reporter asked whether the club was being evacuated.

There is no penalty for ignoring an evacuation order, but rescue crews will not respond if it puts their members at risk.

Disney World and related theme parks announced they were closing early on Wednesday evening and likely would not reopen as scheduled on Thursday.

Palm Beach International Airport closed Wednesday morning, and Daytona Beach International Airport said it would cease operations at 12:30 p.m. Orlando International Airport, the seventh busiest in the U.S., was set to close at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Further south, officials said Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport were experiencing some flight delays and cancellations but both planned to remain open.

At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis said winds were the biggest concern and and significant power outages could occur, but that 16,000 linemen were on standby to restore power, as well as 600 guardsmen and seven search and rescue teams.

“It will affect huge parts of the state of Florida all day,” DeSantis said of the storm’s expected landing.

Almost two dozen school districts were closing schools for the storm and 15 shelters had opened along Florida’s east coast, the governor said.

Florida Division of Emergency Management director Kevin Guthrie said Floridians should expect possible tornadoes, rip currents and flash flooding.

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Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis, who is at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, said he has mobilized all government resources.

“There have always been storms, but as the planet warms from carbon emissions, storms are growing in intensity and frequency,” he said. “For those in Grand Bahama and Abaco, I know it is especially difficult for you to face another storm,” Davis said, referring to the islands hardest hit by Dorian.

At 10 a.m., the storm was 25 miles east northeast of Great Abaco Island and about 210 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida. With maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, the storm was moving at 12 mph.

Tropical storm force winds extended as far as 460 miles from the center in some directions.

It could intensify into a rare November hurricane before hitting Florida, where only two have made landfall since recordkeeping began in 1853 — the 1935 Yankee Hurricane and Hurricane Kate in 1985.

New warnings and watches were issued for many parts of Florida, including the southwestern Gulf coastline which was devastated by Hurricane Ian, which struck as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 28. The storm destroyed homes and damaged crops, including orange groves, across the state.

Ian lashed much of the central region of Florida with heavy rainfall, causing flooding that many residents are still dealing with as Nicole approaches.

In Florida, the “combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline," the hurricane center's advisory said.

Hurricane specialist Brown said the storm will affect a large part of the state.

“Because the system is so large, really almost the entire east coast of Florida except the extreme southeastern part and the Keys is going to receive tropical storm force winds," he said.

The storm is then expected to move across central and northern Florida into southern Georgia on Thursday, forecasters said. It was then forecast to move across the Carolinas on Friday.

“We are going to be concerned with rainfall as we get later into the week across portions of the southeastern United States and southern Appalachians, where there could be some flooding, flash flooding with that rainfall," Brown said.

Early Wednesday, President Joe Biden declared an emergency in Florida and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal and local response efforts to the approaching storm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still responding to those in need from Hurricane Ian.

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Related video above: Hurricane Ida devastation lingers a month later

Tropical Storm Victor formed Wednesday afternoon in the eastern Atlantic, the second to last name on this year's list -- a feat that's reserved for only the most active hurricane seasons.

The National Hurricane Center initiated advisories Wednesday morning on the latest tropical depression to form, maintaining the momentum of our super-charged tropical season.

Located several hundred miles south of the Cape Verde islands, this newly formed tropical storm off the west coast of Africa had sustained winds of 40 mph in the evening. It is forecast to track northwest and continue to strengthen into a hurricane in the coming days.

Fortunately, the storm is not expected to threaten land.

Tropical Storm Victor is exhibiting a classic counterclockwise spin on satellite imagery, a feature that forecasters look for when identifying tropical systems.

The spinning cluster of thunderstorms "now has a well defined circulation and that the radius of maximum wind is 30-40 mi north of the center," said the NHC in its discussion.

The formation of a central circulation, along with sustained winds over 39 mph and a drop in pressure, help characterize this as a tropical storm.

Active hurricane season forges ahead

The emergence of Victor marks an above-average season that continues to unfold. Following Victor, Wanda will be named next before a completely new list of names is introduced for the remainder of the season.

After the record-shattering season in 2020, the World Meteorological Organization decided to do away with the Greek alphabet as the list we would use if we ran out of hurricane names.

When we compare the 2021 season to date, to the historic hurricane season of 2020, a common theme prevails; it's been busy. Some notable differences emerge though, including the fact that the Greek alphabet had already been in use and we had had four 2020 hurricane landfalls along the U.S. coastline compared to just two so far this year.

Hurricane Sam continues to march across the open Atlantic

Not to be overshadowed by the newly formed tropical storm is the much smaller Hurricane Sam.

Although it has been small, it has been very strong. The Category 4 hurricane has sustained winds of 130 mph and is slowly moving northwest. It is forecast to continue this trajectory before turning north this weekend while picking up forward speed and steering east of Bermuda.

It is expected to remain a major hurricane into this weekend and may even strengthen some as it moves into favorable ocean waters. High surf will begin to impact Bermuda by Friday.

Sam will have no impacts on land except for high surf along the Bermuda coastline.

Multiple areas to monitor for potential development

Other than Sam and the newly formed Tropical Storm Victor, two other areas are being monitored for tropical mischief within the next five days.

Although chances remain low, roughly 30% for the cluster of storms southwest of the Cape Verde Islands and 10% for the remnants of what was Tropical Storm Peter, the disturbances pose no risk to land.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico —

Tropical Storm Fred swept into the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, then weakened to a tropical depression after nightfall while dumping heavy rains that forecasters warned could cause dangerous flooding and mudslides there and in neighboring Haiti.

Some 300,000 customers were without power in the Dominican Republic and more than a half million were affected by swollen rivers that forced part of the aqueduct system to shut down, government officials reported.

After a quiet month of no named storms in the region, Fred became the sixth of the Atlantic hurricane season late Tuesday as it moved past the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on a forecast track that would carry it toward Florida over the weekend.

Government crews with megaphones walked through impoverished neighborhoods in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo ahead of the storm urging those in low-lying areas to evacuate. Hours later, the government reported flooding in one courthouse.

Tropical storm warnings were discontinued in the U.S. territories after pelting the islands with rain, leaving some 13,000 customers without power in Puerto Rico.

Fred was centered 25 miles (35 kilometers) south of Cap Haitien, Haiti, on Wednesday night and moving west-northwest at 15 mph (24 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph).

Forecasters said Fred was expected to become a tropical storm again Thursday as it moved near the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas and then pass north of the northern coast of central Cuba on Friday. People in Florida were urged to monitor updates.

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had closed government agencies on Tuesday at noon and officials noted that some gas stations had shut down after running out of fuel.

More than a month had passed since the last Atlantic storm, Hurricane Elsa, but this time of summer usually marks the start of the peak of hurricane season.

The storm was expected to produce rainfall of 3 to 5 inches (7 to 12 centimeters) over the Dominican Republic with up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) in some areas.