BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – Tropical Storm Eta dumped more than two feet of rain in some areas of Broward County Monday, leaving drivers stalled in the street with nowhere to go.
Those same floodwaters made it into homes, and for some people, that was still the case Tuesday morning.
“I feel, like, invaded by rain,” Melrose Park resident Lillie Charles said.
In Fort Lauderdale’s Melrose Park neighborhood, the water was draining too slowly, leaving roadways still impassable on Tuesday.
Sky 10 video shows several cars stuck and crews pumping out water.
“I was supposed to go to work this morning. I’m still stuck here,” Charles Smith said. “Those two cars and the other one over there, they are filled with water right now.”
Smith said he can’t drive his cars and to add insult to injury, water also crept into his home.
“In the Florida room, it was flooded. Laundry room flooded. I think I lost my lazy boy chair, and my computers and some other stuff in there,” he said.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said the Melrose Park neighborhood is on a list to re-engineer the storm mitigation system.
It’s a specific issue he said will be addressed with commissioners this week, as well as finding ways to move the project up on the list.
It was a similar scene in Sunrise, where the water was ankle-deep, and it was much of the same in Lauderhill.
The torrential downpours left streets swamped and homes damaged.
Many cars stalled out in the high water and had to be towed and the Swap Shop parking lot was flooded Monday.
One Lauderhill woman was at home watching her nephew when her ceiling collapsed.
“I got hit on the head by a couple of pieces that fell on the floor, but I’m OK, thank God,” Erica Stennant said.