South Florida communities assess impact of weekend storm

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Officials in Broward and Miami-Dade counties are assessing the impacts of a weekend tropical system that introduced torrential rainfall to South Florida, resulting in important flooding that put native infrastructure to the take a look at.

South Florida Water Management District spokesperson Randy Smith mentioned whereas canals and pump stations carried out “extremely well,” some areas had been merely “overpowered” by the deluge of rain.

“Nobody’s flood control system is ever designed to be able to successfully keep out 13 inches of rain in just a few hours,” Smith mentioned.

Certain areas of Broward County obtained greater than a foot of rainfall, together with Hollywood, the place officers mentioned most flooding befell in areas aware of inundated streets.

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“With 14 inches of rain Hollywood definitely felt some of the impacts from this storm but we fared pretty well here,” Hollywood metropolis spokesperson Joann Hussey mentioned. “There was street-level flooding seen in Hollywood in the low-lying areas that are prone to flooding. It’s about 12 inches above sea level so these areas do typically flood.”

Pompano Beach officers additionally reported flooding in addition to injury to buildings.

“We had a lot of leaking, some leaking of city buildings, we had a tree down on a house, we had various flooding events, which activated utilities to go out and start pumping that water out,” Pompano Beach metropolis spokesperson Sandra King mentioned.

As in Hollywood, flooding was concentrated in acquainted areas.

“It’s always the same areas. You know at any afternoon storm during the summer it floods,” King mentioned. “You know those areas are going to flood.”

King and Hussey mentioned leaders of their cities view the storm as a take a look at run for his or her utilities and emergency operations employees because the hurricane season begins.

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“Improvements can always be made and we always have a post-storm meeting to look and see what went right, what went wrong, and where we can improve,” Hussey mentioned.

In Miami-Dade County, quite a few communities, together with town of Miami, noticed extreme flooding.

A girl cleansing up her residence, who didn’t want to give her identify, described the injury.

“My neighbors, they lost everything! Everything!” she mentioned.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez spent half of his Monday touring some of probably the most flood-prone areas within the metropolis’s Allapattah neighborhood.

The metropolis is taking a look at a $50 million repair to get flooding beneath management within the low-lying space.

“This needs two pumps, which are a high capital expense,” Suarez mentioned.

Suarez mentioned town’s first pump truck flooded over the weekend, requiring town to place a second truck in.

Over within the downtown space, an answer to complaints about water moving into Biscayne Bay turned out to be an issue when it got here to flooding.

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“What (the Florida Department of Transportation) did was they actually put something to prevent the water from outflowing, the problem with that is it keeps all the water inside, which creates flooding on the inside,” Suarez mentioned. “So you sort of solve one problem but create another problem.”

The metropolis is now working with FDOT to repair that concern, officers mentioned.

It can be now planning to attach a pump close to the Publix at Mary Brickell Village, which noticed some of the worst flooding, to a bigger pump close by that they hope may have sufficient capability to maintain the world dry.

Across South Florida, Smith mentioned pumping stations proceed to function 24 hours a day to clear the remainder of the water over the following few days.