Fort Lauderdale is under water.
The Florida city faced a record-breaking deluge after more than two feet (60 centimetres) of rain drenched parts of the South Florida area Wednesday – much of it in a six-hour period.
The torrent prompted the closure of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport and stranded motorists, many of whom were left helpless as the water rose.
“The amount of rain, the rainfall rate is something you should see once in every 1,000 years or once in every 2,000 years,” Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s director of forecast operations, told USA Today.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for Fort Lauderdale and other areas in the pre-dawn hours Thursday as the chance of thunderstorms continued across the region, warning: “This is a life-threatening situation. Seek higher ground now!”
So far, there have been no reports of deaths or injuries.
Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy told CNN that the area already had seen days of rain.
“The ground was already saturated so there is extensive flooding all over our city and throughout South Florida. Many roadways are impassable. Lots of vehicles got stuck and left abandoned in the middle of our roadways,” Levy said. “I’ve lived here my whole life. This is the most severe flooding that I’ve ever seen.”
Alex Lamers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, compared the rain to “putting a faucet right over Fort Lauderdale, turning it on, and walking away.”
The City of Fort Lauderdale has issued a state of emergency and reported that city hall is closed due to power loss and flooding.
The heavy rains also prompted South Florida’s high-speed commuter rail service to shut down Wednesday night, but was restored Thursday.
The closings come as the National Weather Service predicted more rainfall to come, an estimated two to four inches of rain Thursday into Friday.
Videos and images captured across the region Wednesday and into Thursday show roads turned into rivers, water overwhelming homes and people trapped inside their cars.
A person was even spotted swimming through the floodwaters away from a busy street.
One woman who was driving when she received a flash flood warning told The Associated Press she thought she might die.
“The water started rising; I thought I was going to drown,” Amanda Valentine said, adding that she was scared when she couldn’t open her car door or roll the windows down.
“Nothing was working. All the lights were going on in my car, so nothing was operating. And I thought, I’m going to drown,'” she said.
“I called my parents, like, ‘I’m going to die. Like, I’m going to drown. There’s no way for me to get out of this car.’ And they couldn’t help me. I called 911 and they told me they couldn’t help me,” she continued, adding that she eventually forced her way out of the car.
The Washington Post reports that the rainfall equalled more than a third of the normal annual rainfall amounts for Fort Lauderdale. According to the outlet, the city averages 3.02 inches (7.6 centimetres) each April, meaning Wednesday’s drenching was the equivalent of seven Aprils’ worth of rain in a single day.
— with a file from The Associated Press
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