South Florida prepares for days of expected heavy rain
MIAMI - The South Florida Water Management District has been lowering canals all weekend and Monday, making room for rainwater.
While we need the rain Next Weather Chief Meteorology and Hurricane Specialist Ivan Cabrera explains too much too fast can cause problems.
"The problem is we're going to do it so quickly here, a total of 3-6 inches now just through the end of Wednesday. And as we know our poor drainage system and a lot of our neighborhoods here are not going to be able to handle that," Cabrera said.
At the Lakes of Emerald Hills in Hollywood, city crews are clearing out storm drains, preparing for days of expected heavy rain.
People here can't forget the bad flooding in April of last year. Jeremey Berger's car was trashed by flood water.
"Trying to get home to my house and the car stopped in the flooding, got totaled, had to get a new car. Horrible situation," he said.
Jeremy is happy to see crews working in his neighborhood.
Jaime Hernandez is Hollywood's Emergency Manager.
"Part of what we're doing is clearing that out ahead of the rain expected to come on later this week," Hernandez said.
After the huge flood last year, the city got vacuum trucks and now zeros in on areas of town that normally flood.
"We're trying to be very proactive much more than we ever have been in order to preempt flooding issues in our city," he said.
Miami Beach is preparing too, cleaning drains, testing generators and deploying mobile pumps.