Miami-Dade County is under a flood watch after two straight days of pouring rain. The watch is in effect through Thursday evening, so says the National Weather Service. Yesterday, the heavy rains caused many problems for business owners as well as customers in Doral. The Public Works Dept. had to pump water from a parking lot into a nearby canal but the work did not come soon enough for many motorists.
Many businesses located in Doral’s downtown were under water Wednesday. Some business owners told their employees to stay at home while others had their workers park blocks away and then sent semi trucks in to pick them up and take them to work. People living and working in Doral say that the flooding caused by Tuesday’s rainfall is some of the worst they have seen in over ten years. Doral is situated in a low area that doesn’t drain well. City officials warned motorists to stay off several streets because of deep flood water. On Wednesday, sand bags were made available to residents who were in need of protecting their homes from flooding.
A very intense weather system dumped nearly ten inches of rain in some areas, flooding roads, yards and parking lots from Marathon to Ft. Lauderdale. The National Weather Service is warning that some of the approaching weather could be intense again through Thursday, dropping several more inches of rain on already drenched ground.
Forecasts call for the mass of thunderstorms to move slowly to the northeast. If that does occur, the heaviest rains will remain off the southern shores of Florida to offer southern Floridians a decent Memorial Day weekend which they will surely welcome as the weather has been very wet and miserable.
The heavy, twenty-four hour down pouring of rain which has been moving through parts of Florida dumped nearly ten inches of rain at Miami International Airport and nearly eight inches at the National Weather Service’s office on the campus of Florida International University – putting great strain on the drainage system there that is only capable of handling about six inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period.
Many Miami Dade County motorists were trapped in their cars when they ran into deep flood waters Wednesday. Some more fortunate drivers only experienced stall-outs and were able to turn around and bypass the rising roadway water.
