Hallandale Beach Residents Dealing With Aftermath Of Severe Flooding
HALLANDALE BEACH (CBSMiami) – Hallandale Beach residents awoke to a mess on Monday morning – flooded homes, flooded cars and rivers of water on their streets.
Pam Robertson's care was flooded and her home had several inches of water in it.
"I'm concerned that mold may be hidden behind these walls," she said.
By nightfall, work crews with Dry Up Restoration removed baseboards in a number of condos and set up blowers to air things out.
"It's gonna be a sad Christmas but we've been doing our best," said company owner Tomas Delgado.
Longtime residents wondered why this keeps happening.
"I thought the city of Hallandale fixed this three or four years ago," said Kevin Chin.
The city of Hallandale Beach said that a pump in the area stopped working on Monday morning and the cause might have been wells that were completely saturated by extremely heavy rainfall. The city released a video saying crews were working to diagnose and solve the pump problem. The city also said in an Instagram post that "This was a very unique circumstance that was compounded by higher than usual tide and prolonged sustained rain."
The city also said their pumps are large but they are not able to pump water at the same rate that it falls during a heavy rainstorm.
But that was little consolation to residents forced to clean several inches of water from their cars and homes.
"We worked all night with towels. We were flooded with four inches of water in the whole house," said Richard Jacobson.
It was a similar scene in Hollywood east of I-95, where cars were left behind, homes experienced flooding and first responders performed numerous rescues. In Dania Beach, rain gauges showed close to nine inches of water fell after midnight.
Tom Mariani has lived in Hallandale Beach for decades. He's seen several major floods in this low-lying area and he's worried about the damage to his car. He's also wondering what the city of Hallandale Beach can and will do about the flooding.
"I want to ask them what are they doing with these pump stations and why can't they fix them properly to operate properly going forward? It's a broken record," he said.
