This is the Sunshine State?

If you’re coming to Florida, bring yer wellies (although waders would be better).

We got 20-25 inches of rain in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday night, followed on Thursday by – wait for it – more rain. Many streets are still closed, although the airport opened this morning. Worst of all, my house was clobbered.

Here’s the airport, fit only for seaplane service!

Photo by US Coastguard Service

5 Likes

Was your house flooded? Terrible to sort out if it was?

Part of it was, yes. It’s a stinky mess. It’s being called a 1 in 1,000 years event.

Here’s a nearby street:

Photo from NBC

1 Like

Sorry to hear that, its an awful long job cleaning up and drying up.

1 Like

Could it no jist huv waited fur anurra hunner years, but? :scotland:

Seriously, though, much sympathy, and I hope you manage to get dried out and sorted as quickly as possible.

Your pictures make my regular “rainy North Yorks.” comments look somewhat lame by comparison.

Aw ra best.

1 Like

Stay safe bhoyo. I hope your house gets sorted soon.

1 Like

That was my thought too. It reminds me of the (very) old joke: Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.

2 Likes

Watching storm intensities growing on news reports from around the country and the world and combining that with rising sea levels I believe Florida will be experiencing even more problems in the future.

In Washington State they are already seeing communities impacted by King Tides where high water has had serious impact on low lying communities in Seattle and other low lying areas along the coast. A couple of the Native American reservations out on the Pacific Coast have had to move their housing to higher ground due to the increased encroachment of the rising tides and eating away at the land.

2 Likes

About ten years ago my BA flight into Miami tried to land, but had to go round again because of a sudden vicious rain storm. We landed about half an hour later, in sunshine. As we taxied, I could see that the water on the taxiways was deep enough to cause a wake behind each wheel of other taxying aircraft.

It took me another half hour to get through immigration and customs (almost the fastest entry to the US I ever had) and when I stepped out of the terminal, the ground was completely dry. Then the humidity hit me and when I got into my hire car 29 mins later, it was like I had been out in that rain storm, I was that soaked in sweat!

2 Likes

My first thought was that we were having a king tide/rising sea problem. But we’re told this came from a low-pressure system in the Gulf, and a huge rainstorm stalled over Fort Lauderdale for hours. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t have major problems fairly soon in South Florida.

You’re in the Seattle area, right? My son lives in Woodinville.

Yep, that’s a subtropical welcome. In the rainy season, which doesn’t usually begin until late May/early June, we tend to get thunderstorms every afternoon. The water table is already high below the peninsula, so the groundwater rises quickly. The sun takes care of that in short order. Our problem this week was torrential rain (up to 25 inches) that went on for hours.

1 Like

That amount of rain here would be catastrophic, perhaps anywhere.

It was pretty bad here. But we get hurricanes from time to time, so we’re sort of used to angry nature. All part of living in paradise, or so they’ve been telling me for 22 years.

1 Like

2 Likes

A flooded house is a dreadful thing. The family farmhouse was flash-flooded in 2005 and it took a whole year before things began to get back within spitting distance of normal. There was a lot of psychological damage to deal with, as if rectifying the physical damage wasn’t challenging enough.

Mark

2 Likes

It’s Tiddles! We wondered where he got to.

3 Likes

Fortunately, the water damage ended up being minimal. But the smell is taking a while to clear!

1 Like

Stay safe @bhoyo think we’re all in for some extreme weather events. We went from extreme heat and horrific bushfires to 2 years of horrendous floods and below average temperatures.

1 Like

Yep, the change is clearly underway. Our ground is now so sodden that even a regular old Florida afternoon monsoon leaves deep puddles all over the place. Time to head for the hills?

2 Likes

De Santis must be wondering what else he has to do to appease his God.

My sympathies to all impacted by the flooding, it’s becoming all too common.

2 Likes