South Florida has been suffering from flooding this Saturday since Friday night due to the passage of a system that could become the first tropical storm of the season, Alex.
The front carries remnants of Agatha, a hurricane that left a dozen dead in Mexico this week. As of 8 a.m. ET, it was 45 miles south-southwest of Fort Myers and was moving northeast at 18 mph with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, according to the part from the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
If it becomes a tropical storm, it will be named Alex.
The NHC has active tropical storm watches for the Keys, including the Dry Tortugas, Florida Bay, the east coast of the state south of the Volusia/Brevard county line to Card Sound Bridge, and Lake Okeechobee.
The Cuban provinces of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Havana and Mayabeque, Matanzas and the Isle of Youth as well as the Bahamas are also under tropical storm watch.
Up to 10 inches of rain
Torrential rains and strong gusts of wind punished the southern counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe on Friday, the latter where the tourist Florida Keys are located.
[Lo que debe hacer y lo que no durante y después del paso de un huracán]
And the weather report warns of more precipitation. In southern Florida, 6 to 10 inches of rain are expected, with isolated maximums of 12, while in the Keys 4 to 8 inches, with maximums of 10.
The system should move across the southern and central portions of the Florida panhandle on Saturday, and then over the southwestern Atlantic and northwestern Bahamas by late Saturday, according to the NHC.
As of 3 a.m. Saturday, parts of South Florida had already registered five inches of rain, according to Weather Underground. This is in addition to the three to four inches that fell over parts of the area on Friday.
As residents in low-lying areas continued to fill sandbags to protect driveways to homes and businesses from flooding, officials urged residents to be prepared “now” for hurricane season.
“We are observing the potential storm and right now there are no interruptions of the transport service (public), but COVID-19 testing sites may be temporarily closed today and tomorrow,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference.
“This potential storm comes just three days into the hurricane season and it is time to prepare well; being prepared is the best way to stay safe”Levine Cava pointed out.
For his part, Commissioner José “Pepe” Díaz assured that the county, with some 2.5 million inhabitants, is verifying “if the canals that flow into the sea have the capacity to withstand the water that will fall between today and tomorrow.”
According to local media, local government employees handed sandbags to cars as people lined up to collect up to 12 bags per household.
The greatest risk generated by this system is not so much its winds but the threat of flooding due to rains, which has caused the closure of public and leisure places in South Florida and the distribution of sandbags.
To this threat must be added, the NHC warned, the possibility of isolated tornadoes being generated in South Florida in the early hours of Saturday.
The middle FLKeysNews published on Friday several recommendations to follow for people who are in the chain of islets and decide to stay there.
The closest thing, according to the newspaper, is to take into account the devastating hurricane Irma of 2017, when the Florida Keys received a direct hit from the category 4 system, which made landfall on Cudjoe Key, leaving widespread damage.
“The best advice? Listen to the experts. Since there is only one entrance and one exit, emergency managers weigh the strength of a storm and the threat to property and people before ordering a mass evacuation.
With information from Efe, AP and NBC Miami y Miami Herald