Torrents of water inundated roads, impeding travel to the international airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which was closed as more than 20 inches of rain dumped down in hours. Residents are warned to stay off the roads, 22,000 are without electricity and Ford Lauderdale airport is forced to close.
Thunderstorms left travelers stranded inside the city’s airport, trapped motorists in floodwaters and prompted the authorities to declare a rare flash flood emergency.
Intense thunderstorms that pummeled southeastern Florida on Wednesday dumped an estimated 15 to 20 inches of rain on Fort Lauderdale, trapping motorists in floodwaters and leaving travelers stranded inside a shuttered international airport.
Storms are a way of life in South Florida, but the torrential rain was so heavy that the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport closed early Wednesday evening and was not expected to reopen until noon on Thursday. The closures, flooding and bad weather combined to cause hourslong traffic jams.
“I’ve lived here my entire life,” said Dawn Grayson, 49, who sat in traffic for four hours after arriving at the airport to learn that her flight to Las Vegas had been canceled. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen before.”
The skies over Fort Lauderdale eventually cleared, and there were no immediate reports of injuries. But for a few hours overnight, the Fort Lauderdale area was under a rare flash flood emergency — an alert reserved for situations where torrents of water pose a severe threat to human life and can cause catastrophic damage.
That emergency expired at 2 a.m. Eastern time, but a flood warning for parts of Broward County and other areas of South Florida was scheduled to remain in effect until 8 a.m. Other parts of South Florida were under a flood watch, indicating a lower level of risk, until Thursday evening. City facilities in Fort Lauderdale will not reopen until Friday.
The city, which lies in Broward County on Florida’s Atlantic coast, is one of the largest in the state. Its one-day rainfall record of 14.59 inches occurred on April 25, 1979.
The estimate that 15 to 20 inches of rain fell in the Fort Lauderdale area on Wednesday is a rough one that was based on radar, Chris Fisher, the lead forecaster at the National Weather Service Office in Miami, said by phone early Thursday.
Mr. Fisher said Wednesday’s precise rainfall total would likely become clearer later in the day, but that the storm was already “historic,” in part because April is typically a dry month in South Florida. He said he could not recall such significant flooding at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
Ms. Grayson said she and three family members left their home in nearby Miami-Dade County nearly five hours before their 8:45 p.m. flight. They all work for the family business and were heading to Las Vegas for a conference.
The drive, in torrential rain, took an hour, or three times longer than usual, Ms. Grayson said. Along the way, she saw water cascading off a flooded runway and cars stuck in floodwaters.
By the time they arrived at the airport, it was closed, several parking garages were flooded, and airport staff and Uber drivers had joined the ranks of dazed airline passengers who were sheltering in place and wondering how to get home.
“I didn’t quite understand how we even got out of there because the weather was so bad,” Ms. Grayson said by phone early Thursday. “But we did, and then driving home was extremely scary.”
Late Wednesday night, her seven-hour ordeal ended where it had started: at her home. Her mother and sister have managed to rebook flights to Las Vegas out of Miami. But she and her husband were not able to rebook, so they’ve canceled their trip.
That may be just as well because floodwaters have seeped under the large doors of their workplace, in a warehouse district of Miami-Dade County, and someone needs to clean up.
“They’re going, and we’re going back to work tomorrow,” she said with a laugh. “Back to life.”
National Weather Service Miami later posted on Twitter than more than 20 inches of rainfall had been observed in just 6 hours on Wednesday evening.
‘Police and Fire Rescue continue to answer calls for service,’ the statement said. ‘Public Works staff are clearing drains and operating pumps to mitigate the water as quickly as possible.’
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for Fort Lauderdale and other areas, warning: ‘This is a life-threatening situation. Seek higher ground now!’
There have been no immediate reports of injuries or deaths.