An early June deluge has once again turned South Florida’s roads and parks into rivers and lakes, snarling traffic and sending residents sloshing through streets, shoes in hand. And it’s not done yet.
While the rainfall levels are still largely within the normal limits South Florida’s drainage system is designed to handle (so far), the downpour has revealed the weak spots in the system — neighborhoods, streets and even homes that routinely flood during heavy rainstorms.
Alfredo Rodriguez moved into St. Edward’s Apartments in the Edgewater neighborhood of Miami a year ago, and he said it’s flooded five times since he got here. The lobby of his building had a half inch of water puddled inside on Wednesday morning, hours after the rain had stopped.
“It was a surprise to me. I want to leave this place in the next three months. This is horrible. I can’t pull my car around,” he said.
Outside, a city of Miami employee manned a loud, sputtering piece of machinery designed for these situations, a temporary stormwater pump. The employee noted the pump was “doing its job,” yet cars on the bay front street sat in water up to their front bumper.
Miami deployed 12 of its 14 temporary pumps for this flood event, including the one on Rodriguez’ street, in addition to the city’s 13 permanent pump stations. Miami also sicced a squad of ten roving vactor trucks on the flooding hot spots, large trucks that suck up excess water on the street.
TELL US: Has your home or street flooded in South Florida? We want to hear about it
Miami saw about 4 to 6 inches of rain on Tuesday alone, according to preliminary results from the Miami office of the National Weather Service. Miami Beach saw even more, at nearly 7 inches.
The scene was similar in Broward, with around 6 inches in Hallandale and 5 inches in Hollywood. The Fort Lauderdale airport set a new record for June 11 at 3.3 inches in a single day, beating a record of 3.1 inches in 1997.
Shawn Bhatti, a meteorologist at the NWS’s Miami office, said Miami-Dade is expected to see another 5 to 7 inches of rain through Saturday morning, and Broward could see 4 to 6.5 inches.
While it’s unclear where, exactly, the brunt of that rain may fall, it could be a double whammy of water to places like Brickell, Downtown Miami and Miami Beach, which were hit the hardest in the first round of rain on Tuesday.
“They’re going to be pretty sensitive to more flooding in the next few days,” Bhatti said.
That additional rain total could strain drainage efforts in South Florida even further.
In 2022, a would-be tropical system passed over South Florida and dropped 15 inches of rain in just a few days. Hundreds of cars were stalled out in the floodwaters, and more than a hundred people called Miami-Dade’s 311 line with flood complaints.
READ MORE: Flood of troubles: Why Miami-Dade’s drainage problems won’t be fixed anytime soon
This time, the conditions are similar. The National Hurricane Center is tracking a disturbance that’s crossing the state, dumping a veritable rain train of water. The hurricane center gives it a low chance of strengthening into a tropical depression — just 20% — by the time it emerges on the east coast.
But, for now, South Florida’s rainfall isn’t classified as a tropical system. It’s “just” rain, except at levels usually only seen with tropical storms or hurricanes.
“It is fairly unusual, especially to see this wide of a swath over the region, Bhatti said.
