FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Water was flowing around her car, and Amanda Valentine thought she was going to die. She had just gotten a flood warning on her phone, and now it was all around her.
“I called my parents and said, ‘I’m going to die. I feel like I’m about to drown. There’s no way I’m getting out of this car,’” Valentine said. “And they couldn’t help me. I called 911 and they said they couldn’t help me.”
Finally he forced open the door and made it to safety.
Parts of South Florida began cleaning up Thursday after the unprecedented storm that trapped Valentine and other drivers, dumped more than 2 feet of rain in just a few hours, caused widespread flooding, closed a key airport and turned thoroughfares into rivers. No injuries or deaths were immediately reported.
Residents were still wading through knee-deep water or using canoes and kayaks to navigate the streets Thursday in Fort Lauderdale’s Edgewood neighborhood, where window fitter Dennis Vasquez carried some of his neighbor’s belongings on an inflatable mattress to a dry car. He himself lost all his belongings when the water rose to his chest at his home on Wednesday evening.
“Everything, it’s gone,” he said in Spanish. “But I will replace him.”
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
In Broward County, where rains began Monday before the heaviest rains hit Wednesday afternoon, crews worked Thursday to clear drains and turn on pumps to clear standing water.
Fort Lauderdale issued a state of emergency as flooding persisted in parts of the city. Crews worked through the night to respond to emergency calls. Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, which was closed Wednesday night, said it would not reopen until 5 a.m. Friday due to debris and flooding.
By early Thursday, the water had receded enough for people to walk up the road from the upper level — or departures — to pick up waiting passengers. But the lower level street entrance, or arrivals, remained closed.
Airlines were forced to cancel or change flights to and from the airport. Southwest had canceled about 50 trips by Friday morning and the number could rise, a spokesman said. The airline allows customers to rebook flights to and from Miami and Palm Beach at no additional cost, the statement said.
Frontier Airlines moved two flights from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, but canceled about 15 more round trips, a spokesman said. Allegiant Air also canceled some flights and rerouted others to the Tampa, Orlando and Punta Gorda areas.
More than 650 flights were canceled in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, according to FlightAware.
Broward County schools initially canceled classes Thursday, including after-school and after-school activities, after water flooded hallways and classrooms at some schools. Officials announced in the evening that schools will be closed on Friday. Service has been restored on South Florida’s Brightline high-speed rail line after it was briefly disrupted Wednesday night.
The Red Cross has set up a waiting area to help residents whose homes were flooded, providing them with blankets and coffee, officials said.
Fort Lauderdale City Hall was closed Thursday due to flooding downstairs and a power outage. A tunnel carrying U.S. Route 1 under a river and a major road in downtown Fort Lauderdale was also closed, along with several ramps to Interstate 95.
Tow truck driver Keith Hickman said he saw abandoned cars “floating like boats” on the streets of Fort Lauderdale.
“There were hundreds of cars up and down here,” he said. “It was awesome. I’ve never seen cars floating between each other and floating. And a pickup truck would come and the security guard would push the cars against the other cars and they would float. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
In Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk neighborhood, Bobbie Ponder, 74, lifted her dress to push her bike the last block to Ray’s Market to get a money order for her internet bill, just for to find that it was flooded and closed. Bags of French fries and Cheetos floated in a foot of water as workers tried to clean up.
Ponder, who lives in a third-floor apartment, said he didn’t think the flooding would be this bad until he tried to ride his bike. He tried to keep the flooding in perspective, comparing it to tornadoes that have recently hit other states, killing dozens.
“We are blessed – many of them are dead,” he said.
In the Edgewood neighborhood, Christopher Alfonso and Tony Mandico, neighbors of 50 years, said their homes are likely total losses.
“That storm … poured over us for hours and hours and hours,” Alfonso said. Pointing to the tightly packed houses with small yards, he said: “All this asphalt, concrete, no grass – there was nowhere for (the water) to go.”
Both said the area never flooded heavily until a sanitary sewer system replaced septic tanks 10 years ago, making some streets higher than others and channeling rain to the streets below.
Shawn Bhatti, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, said the region received “an unprecedented amount” of rain. The Weather Service is still confirming totals, but some gauges showed as much as 25 inches (63.5 centimeters) of rain.
“For context, over a six-hour period, the amount that fell is about a 1 in 1,000 chance of happening in a given year,” Bhatti said. “So it’s a very historic type of event.”
Kozin and Frisaro both reported from Fort Lauderdale. Associated Press reporter Kathy McCormack contributed from Concord, New Hampshire.
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