Record-Breaking Rain Floods South Florida as Tropical Storm Alex Forms
Written by SOURCE on June 5, 2022
South Florida experienced heavy rains this weekend, as Tropical Storm Alex, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, left widespread flooding across the state.
According to the National Weather Service, downtown Miami saw 11 inches of rain as of Saturday morning, with some parts of the state experiencing over a foot of rain.
City of Miami Fire Rescue Lt. Pete Sanchez spoke with WSVN about the storm.
“It’s been a very busy night,” Sanchez said. “We’ve been at this since 5 [p.m.] yesterday. We’ve seen a lot of flooding. We’re still seeing people out of the road.”
Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami-Dade County Emergency Management urged drivers to stay off the roads.
“A lot of people did prepare, but still a lot of people were out driving last night, and those are the ones that got stuck, and we’ve had over 40, 50 cars, that were stuck out in the water,” said Sanchez. “We had to help people, rescue people out of their vehicles.”
Sanchez is advising residents to stay home in order to avoid having their vehicles stuck on the waterlogged streets.
“We’re asking everyone to please still stay inside. There’s a lot of flooding; we don’t want people getting stuck in the water. We have eight high-angle rescue vehicles that are out assisting people that are stranded in their vehicles,” said Sanchez. We’ve seen a lot of abandoned cars. There have been about 125 storm-related calls since about 1:30 in the morning when this all started to transpire.”
