Businesses Battle City Over Doral Flood Cleanup
DORAL (CBSMiami) – South Florida's sunny skies are a welcome sight for drivers and businesses that had to deal with a flood of trouble earlier in the week. When record rain fall drenched areas of Doral starting Tuesday; neighborhoods, roads and parking lots were submerged in water and some of the flooding is still there three days later.
One of the worst hit areas was Doral's tile district which is just starting to dry out but it is slow-going.
"It's too much of a task to take on for private owners to repair all these streets," said business owner Blas Garcia.
The heavy rain put much of the tile district under water which ruined expensive tile showcases and left behind heaps of damaged goods as business owners try to wash away their troubles.
"We're just cleaning up the show room, seeing what we can save and just trying to open up the business again," said Garcia.
The City of Doral said the flooded side streets are not its problem. They said they were once a landfill bought and built upon by private owners. Doral said the private owners are responsible for maintaining the sewage system on those streets.
"Obviously this is s a perfect example if you own a private road, even if you own a house, any connection between your house and either the county sewer system or the municipality storm system you are responsible for maintaining that connection," said Natalie French from the City Of Doral. "But clearly that's not happening they're not maintaining it. So what can the city do about it? Ask them to maintain it."
Business owners want help from the City.
"They should at least come in and try to give us a hand somehow you know maybe flush out the drains," said Garcia. "At the end of the day this is part of the City of Doral and they can make more of an effort to help us out."
Now, after days of lost business, the owners are now starting to pump away the excess water and the concrete in the parking lots are finally visible once again as the clean up continues.
