Life-threatening flooding in South Florida

Parts of South Florida are under a flood watch this morning after four days of heavy rain. The National Weather Service considers it a

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situation in the Fort Lauderdale area. Our many beforks are there. Manny. Good morning. Good morning. Omar. We are in Fort Lauderdale. Hollywood International Airport and behind me you can see exactly why they were forced to close this operation. There is water on the runway, but also behind it is what looks like a lake at this point, that is the runway, it is submerged and the airport is not scheduled to resume operations. As of at least noon today, this area received more than 26 inches of rain in an eight-hour period, to put it in perspective, that's about 40 percent of its annual rainfall in just one day.

Some South Florida streets looked like Rivers on Wednesday. I've never seen this before. Too much rain leaves cars stuck, almost submerged or even abandoned. I see like 20 cars stopped and uh, guys, I told a guy not to drive. Flooded roads force people to walk through knee-deep water. Some even sink right across the street now. Now is not the time to be on the roads, authorities are urging residents to seek higher ground and stay off the roads, look at these houses. The rising water from the relentless rain flooded the parking lot of this hospital in Fort Lauderdale and flooded many garages like the Andra cicadis one I've lived in. here for the last four years and as much rain as we've gotten, this is the worst I've ever seen in my

life

.

The planes were grounded at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, where almost 200 flights were canceled yesterday, many passengers were stranded and crowded in the terminals sleeping overnight. Wherever they could, we are trying to get home and they tell us the airport is closed so at this point we don't know what to do overnight, the airport reopened the departures area. Lanes to give to passengers who were stranded. a chance to get out if they want, but the headaches continue today Broward County schools said they would close for today due to

flooding

Omar, that photo behind you looks amazing, it really looks like a boat ramp instead of a landing strip What is the situation there this morning for residents?

Are there any signs of relief on the way? This is going to go away fine. Unfortunately, there is a chance of more rain this afternoon. The hope is that most of the water will have subsided by then, but it seems. It's going to be going down pretty slowly right now, so that's going to be a problem, but there's going to be a lot of cleanup on my way here to the airport, not only is there still

flooding

on the roads, but also a lot of cars that were left behind. Stranded and abandoned are still littering the roads too.

I mean, listen, everyone says it rains for 15 minutes every day in the Miami Fort Lauderdale area, but have you seen it like that, Manny, have you lived there for a long time? a while, I mean, it survives hurricanes and rain, but have you seen anything like this? Yeah, I've never seen anything like this. I'll tell you, I was in Miami when all of this was happening and the rain was relentless there, but this cell just sat in this area here in Fort Lauderdale for so long that it paid attention to him as he pointed to Florida.

In South Florida, we are used to rain here, but this was just a ridiculous amount of rain in a short period of time. I mean, do people understand it? In Texas and in the

south

they know that there are flash floods. Stay away, but we still see pictures of cars and people trying to get through those abandoned cars where those people like me. I'm not going to risk it. I'm going to run out and save myself. It's strange to see cars stranded like this. Well, I'll tell you this. The worst part of the storm, where people began to become stranded on flooded roads, occurred in the rush. time, a lot of them were just trying to get home from work and maybe they didn't know the water was going to get that high, but once traffic stops because there's a flooded intersection and the water keeps rising, people are going to get out. of their cars, especially if the cars can't turn around if the flood renders them useless and that's why you have all those cars stranded there.

Miami rush hour traffic is tough without the rain, but that's crazy. Manny take care thank you very much