Amanda Valentine feared she might drown as the water grew around her automobile.
Flash flooding was happening all around her even though she had just received a warning about it on her phone.
“I said to my parents, ‘I’m going to die. like if I’m about to drown. There’s no way I can get out of this car,” declared Valentine. They were unable to assist me. When I contacted 911, they said they couldn’t help me.
The door was eventually wrenched open, allowing her to escape danger.
Valentine and other vehicles were stuck by an unusual storm that dumped more than 2 feet (60 cm) of rain in a couple of hours, caused severe flooding, and shut down a portion of South Florida on Thursday.
In Fort Lauderdale’s Edgewood area, where window screen contractor Dennis Vasquez pulled some of his neighbor’s goods on an inflatable mattress to a car on dry land, residents still walked through knee-high water or used canoes and paddles to negotiate the streets Thursday.
He lost everything when the water came to chest height in his home Wednesday night.
He said in Spanish, “Everything, it’s gone. But I’ll get a new one.
Crews worked Thursday to empty drains and activate pumps to remove standing water in Broward County, where the rain began Monday before the heaviest storms arrived Wednesday afternoon.
As flooding persisted in some areas of the city, Fort Lauderdale declared a state of emergency. Crews responded to rescue requests all night long.
Early on Thursday, enough water had evaporated to allow drivers to use the upper level, or departures road, to pick up awaiting passengers. But the lower-level, or arrivals road, entry remained locked.
Flights to and from the airport had to be changed or canceled by the airlines. A spokesman said that Southwest canceled around 50 departures until Friday morning, and the number may rise.
According to her, the airline offers free rebooking for passengers on flights to and from Miami and Palm Beach.
According to a spokesman, Frontier Airlines changed the destination of two flights from Fort Lauderdale to Miami but canceled roughly 15 additional roundtrips.
Additionally, Allegiant Air redirected several flights to the Tampa, Orlando, and Punta Gorda regions while canceling others.
After water inundated corridors and classrooms at some schools on Thursday, Broward County schools at first canceled classes, including after-school and extracurricular activities. Friday, schools will be closed, officials stated in the evening. Brightline, South Florida’s high-speed commuter train, resumed service on Wednesday night after experiencing a brief outage.
According to officials, the Red Cross set up a staging area to assist locals with flooded homes by giving them blankets and coffee.
The ground level of Fort Lauderdale City Hall was flooded, and the building was without power on Thursday.
A tunnel that carries the U.S. Along with sure Interstate 95 exits, Route 1 was blocked off beneath a river and a busy street in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
A tow truck driver, Keith Hickman, claimed to have seen abandoned vehicles “floating like boats.”
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