‘Scary and sobering’: Miami-Dade, Cutler Bay mayors tour area facing ‘catastrophic’ floods

CUTLER BAY, Fla. – The mayors of Miami-Dade County and Cutler Bay toured a neighborhood inundated with water Tuesday following a torrential rainstorm Monday that significantly added to flooding from a tropical system over the weekend.

As county Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and town Mayor Tim Meerbott joined other local officials in surveying conditions, many in Cutler Bay’s Saga Bay neighborhood still couldn’t leave their homes Tuesday.

“This is very scary and sobering,” Levine Cava said.

Town officials said water that typically drains into a lake overflowed, spilling into neighborhoods. One resident described the lake as filling the entire neighborhood. Certain places were under more than four feet of water.

“It’s bad. It’s really, really bad,” resident Gelcys Nogueras said. “There’s certain areas where it’s receding very little but most of Saga Bay is underwater.”

Meerbott called the level of flooding “unprecedented,” saying the town does not have enough pumps to handle the sheer volume of water that came in with the storms.

“It’s not so much the issue of the water coming in, it’s just not going out,” he said. “Unfortunately, the only thing that’s going to get this out of here is gravity. We don’t have enough pumps in the world to get this gone.”

The town is working with the county and the South Florida Water Management District to bring in more equipment to pump more water out of Cutler Bay.

Frustrated town residents are hoping for a long-term fix.

“We’ve been living here a few years,” Jeremy Cinicollo said. “It’s getting old. They need to fix it.”

Levine Cava, who represented Cutler Bay on the Miami-Dade County Commission before becoming mayor, said she supports “long-term solutions.”

“We need to build higher,” she said. “We need to do everything in our power to make sure we don’t overload our water and sewer system.”

Residents needing help are being advised to call 911.