Heavy rain inundated roads in South Florida on Wednesday, shutting down Fort Lauderdale’s airport until Thursday and stranding travelers, and causing “severe flooding” that stalled cars, officials and forecasters said.
The city of 181,000 said early Thursday it activated its emergency operations center and secured airboats to conduct any rescues.
Radar estimates showed 11 to 12 inches of rain in the Fort Lauderdale area, with up to 17 inches closer to the coast, Chuck Caracozza, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Miami, said Wednesday evening.
A flash flood emergency had been issued for areas near Fort Lauderdale and Dania Beach, but even after that expired early Thursday a flood warning remained until 8 a.m. Fort Lauderdale’s fire department reported severe flooding.
“It’s extremely dangerous here in the Fort Lauderdale area,” Caracozza said. “People should be avoiding the roads and staying off the roads.”
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport said it would be closed until at least noon Thursday. Entrance and exit roads flooded, and stalled vehicles were being removed from upper levels.
“The roads, you can’t get in or out, so there’s an entire airport full of people who are just hostage here,” Wendy Sachs, who had been stranded at the airport since 3 p.m., said at around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Sachs’ flight to Newark, New Jersey, never left. She described the floods as “biblical” and said everyone was trying to get a rental car — not to leave immediately, as floods made that impossible, but just to save one.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sachs, who grew up in Miami.
Video broadcast by NBC Miami showed flooding in an airport parking garage and cars driving through flooded streets in Dania Beach, a city just south of Fort Lauderdale.
“We’re asking you to stay off the roadways until some of this water dissipates,” Fort Lauderdale Fire Chief Stephen Gollan told residents in a video the city manager shared Wednesday. Cars…
Read the full article here