Flood Fears Abound In Doral, Other Rain-Soaked Areas
DORAL (CBSMiami) – The first official day of summer, the Summer Solstice, turned out to be a soggy one.
Overcast skies and rain throughout the day made for some gloomy spirits.
"We need a couple of more people," said Kyle Eldridge at the Johnny Rockets in Coconut Grove. "We need the sun to shine. This is Miami, Florida."
Eldridge said he was hoping Tuesday night's big Heat win at the AmericanAirlines Arena would give them a boost.
"After the Heat games we usually get a crowd but last night there was a lot of rain, but no Thunder," punned Eldridge about the Thunder's loss to the Heat 104-98.
For the few tourists who ventured out on Wednesday, conditions were less than ideal.
"We were hoping to catch a little beach weather but we'll walk around and deal with it," said Susan Deparle.
Across town in Doral, Carlos Lam was having a really bad day.
"We were just driving and the water just came in," said Lam. "We didn't think it was that deep."
His BMW quit and it had to be towed out of warehouse district which made headlines last month for flooding.
"The water was up to the door handle," said Lam.
Business owners in the warehouse district hoped they didn't encounter a repeat of that severe flooding that stalled cars, flooded businesses and left parking lots underwater.
"It's something that's hard to deal with during difficult times. But we are here. We got through it," said
Blas Garcia of National Ceramics which suffered major damage during last month's downpours.
The water lines are still visible in the showroom of National Ceramics.
The freak mid-week storm in May came down hard and fast. By the end, Garcia's driveway looked like a canal in Venice, Italy, minus the gondola.
"In damage we probably had about $20,000 -$30,000 in damage," said Garcia.
Garcia learned a expensive lesson that day; get flood insurance.
"A lot of it we re-did. A lot of it still not done. A lot of it we tore down in the process," said Garcia.
The South Florida Water Management District said they have drained a lot of canals in preparation for this storm so they expect to continue pumping water out east into the ocean and possibly out west into an emergency holding area in the Everglades.
