Cars were marooned in the middle of Brickell’s waterlogged streets. A county worker stayed up all night filling trash bags with debris collected from clogged storm drains in west Miami-Dade. Neighbors in Pompano Beach cruised down the street on paddleboards. Fish swam up through the a parking garage’s storm drain at a condo near Miami Shores.
A tropical disturbance has dumped nine to 11 inches of rain across South Florida, flooding neighborhoods from the coast to the edge of the Everglades. The soggier side of this hurricane season’s first potential tropical cyclone started to soak the region Friday and continued through a dreary Saturday.
Images of the storm’s impacts inundated social media and news coverage. Here are some scenes from the flooding.
Little Havana and Flagami
Near Riverside Park, residents waded through knee-high water in the street Saturday afternoon. One tried to unclog a storm drain with what looked like a curtain rod.
Water seeped into the people’s homes, forcing them to pile belongings onto their beds. They sloshed around inside their homes, assessing the damage after the rains stopped and sun reappeared Saturday afternoon. Water rose and lapped at front doors further west in Flagami, one of several locations where temporary stormwater pumps were deployed to help drain the streets.
Brickell
Tow trucks had to haul cars out of floodwaters early Saturday after the overnight rain drenched low-lying streets in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. City of Miami officials opened a hotline for people to report stranded vehicles (305-579-6111, in case you still need it).
Water seeped into several businesses, dousing grocery items in a Publix storage room and forcing owners of Raw Juce bar and Spa and Nail Fever to sweep water out the front door.
Folks leaving Brickell’s leaving nightlife spots had a tough time moving their cars in wee hours.
Doral and Hialeah
The rain completely flooded the sidewalks on Northwest 36th Street in front of the popular CityPlace Doral shopping mall. On Saturday afternoon, after the downpour, drivers slowly made their way as close as possible to the median to avoid the large pools of stagnant water by the curves.
Jorge Saavedra, a Miami-Dade County Transportation and Public Works employee, said he spent all night unclogging drains in the western Miami-Dade. With a shovel, rake and scoop typically used for fishing coconuts out of canals, he tried to clear trash out of storm drains.
We’re out here working,” said Saavedra, 59, who has been doing this line of work for about 22 years. “And warning cars not to drive through.”
In Hialeah, one resident posted a video on Instagram where he commented on Miami-Dade County’s skyrocketing rents while showing floodwaters in his parking lot.
“About to start swimming. Look at that. About to go in the car, [bleeped expletive],” he said. “Then they want to charge you $5,000 a month of rent to live in Miami.”
Broward County
Miami Herald news partner CBS4 reported that two people were riding their paddleboard down a flooded street. They also repeated the advice given by multiple government agencies — avoid touching floodwaters.
In Oakland Park, Local 10’s news team spotted two brothers braving the flood, one in a kayak and the other on a bicycle.
Northeast Miami-Dade
Municipal crews in Aventura rolled out temporary pumps to help drain flooded streets in multiple locations, a site seen in several Miami-Dade cities.
In a section of unincorporated coastal Miami-Dade between North Miami and Miami Shores, a television news reporter for WSVN saw fish swimming in the parking garage of a condominium.
This story was originally published June 4, 2022 6:31 PM.
Joey Flechas covers government and public affairs in the city of Miami for the Herald, from votes at City Hall to neighborhood news. He won a Sunshine State award for revealing a Miami Beach political candidate’s ties to an illegal campaign donation. He graduated from the University of Florida.
Jimena Tavel covers higher education for the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. She’s a bilingual reporter with triple nationality: Honduran, Cuban and Costa Rican. Born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, she moved to Florida at age 17. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2018, and joined the Herald soon after.