Major flooding in South Florida shuts down a major airport and puts roads underwater
Floodwaters shut down Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for several hours Monday, blocking access to the passenger terminals on one of the busiest travel days of the year and paralyzing major streets up and down Southeast Broward.
The airport eventually reopened before 7 a.m., but not before more than 100 flights were delayed for many eager to get to their holiday destinations. Severely flooded streets in the area followed a beat-down of heavy rain from midnight into the early morning hours.
While the waters slowly receded through the morning, flooding took a toll on a swath of South Broward and Northeast Miami-Dade. Water seeped into homes and businesses along the U.S. 1 corridor, a parking garage sloshed with deep water at Aventura Mall, and Gulfstream Village was an island beyond flooded surface lots and horse stables.
It might take longer for the floodwaters to recede in Hallandale Beach, where one of the city’s pump stations stopped working. City leaders say it’s possible that the “historic” rainfall, along with a high tide nine inches higher than normal, could have “saturated” the pump, which is supposed to help drain flood water quickly from the low-lying area. Crews were at the north pump station Monday afternoon working on a fix.
IN AVENTURA
Across from Aventura Mall, drivers waded through several inches of water as they tried to navigate small lakes that had formed in a Publix parking lot and the nearby intersection of Northeast 29th Place and 199th Street.
Ronen Navoni of Aventura said his girlfriend was on her way to work at the mall when she tried cutting through the Publix lot to avoid flooding on the street. Her small red Ford got stuck, forcing them to flag down a tow truck that was already helping other drivers in the area.
A few feet away, a man stood in knee-deep water and pushed his car to higher ground. Minutes later, another mid-size car stalled as it sloshed through the intersection nearby.
IN THE AIRPORT
But the biggest flooding fallout was at Broward’s major airport.
Flooding on the airfields and the roadways surrounding the airport caused the airport to close around 3:40 a.m. Monday, said FLL spokeswoman Arlene Satchell. Airfield flooding reached eight inches at one point, rendering them unusable.
By early afternoon, there were still some pockets of flooding on the recently upgraded north runway, one of only two at the airport, limiting the number of planes that could use the runway. Satchell said the airport was waiting for the water to recede before making the north runway fully operational.
“The quicker we can get both runways fully operational the better for us,” she said.
Flooding on the roadways also caused cars heading to the airport in the dark to get stuck, Satchell said, creating a dangerous situation for travelers.
Everyone in the airport at the time of the shutdown could remain inside or leave. Airline offices in Terminal 3 experienced some seeping water, but no physical damage, Satchell said. Entrance gates were closed until the airport reopened at 6 a.m.
Passengers were allowed to enter the terminals about an hour before the airport resumed flights. Just after 10:30 a.m. Monday, the Broward airport had 113 flight delays but no canceled flights.
On Sunday night, before the flooding, the Broward airport reported that 152 flights were delayed and 11 were canceled because of storms. Miami International Airport had 11 arrivals and three departures delayed because of the weather, according to an airport spokesman.
Forecasters said that by 5 a.m. Monday, the Broward airport had seen between six and eight inches of rain in the past 24 hours.
All-night rain also flooded streets south of the airport, along the U.S. 1 corridor in Hollywood, Dania Beach and Hallandale Beach in South Broward. Local police departments warned drivers to stay away.
But video posted by Total Traffic Miami at 7 a.m. showed cars trying to navigate through a flooded A1A in Hollywood, with some appearing to get stranded.
Up to 12 inches of rain
The National Weather Service in Miami says forecasters saw a widespread three to six inches of new rainfall in Northeast Miami-Dade and Southeast Broward overnight into Monday. Coastal Broward received 12.5 inches of rain, according to radar estimates observed at the South Florida Water Management District.
The highest amount of rain was recorded in the area around Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and in Hallandale Beach.
A rainfall gauge at the S-29 structure, a basin just south of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, registered 9.01 inches, a level that’s unheard of for this time of year, said Todd Kimberlain, a senior meteorologist at the water management district.
In parts of northeast Hallandale Beach, water seeped into buildings and left tenants scrambling.
At the Chabad of South Broward on Hallandale Beach Blvd. near Northeast 12th Ave., a small preschool and several offices took on water and damaged rugs and papers. Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus said he had 40 years worth of files in a box that were damaged.
“It was like the Red Sea,” Tennenhaus said of the storm Monday afternoon as a dry air machine whirred outside. “I’ve seen bad storms. It was crazy.”
Two blocks over on 14th Ave., Bruce Feder, the president of the April Breeze condo complex, looked on as residents threw away damaged appliances and used bowls to dump water out of their first-floor units.
At one point overnight, Feder said, the water was waste-high in the parking lot and pushed up against tenants’ doors.
“I’m 71. I’ve been through hurricanes,” he said. “This is just as bad because we had water [get inside].”
The weather was nicer to those living in Miami-Dade.
According to the water management district, all coastal structures were open to move water out to sea, and all pumps and other flood control systems worked to lower canals as they were meant to during storms.
In Miami, flooding was reported at a dozen locations on Monday, a city spokeswoman said. The city dispatched stormwater crews to the areas. But in Miami Beach, a spokeswoman said she had not heard reports of flooding in the city.
“We dodged a bullet,” said Kimberlain of the water district. “The event could have affected a much larger area of the state but it was concentrated in South Broward, North Miami-Dade.”
What’s next?
The region remained under a flood advisory throughout Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The advisory, covering Southeast Broward and Northeast Miami-Dade, was extended to 5:45 p.m. because floodwaters were slow to recede.
But there is a silver lining.
The rain is making way for sunny skies on Tuesday and cooler nights, with temperatures dipping to the low-60s.
Miami Herald staff writer Martin Vassolo contributed to this report.
This story was originally published December 23, 2019 at 5:23 AM.
