Miami Rain... Record Rainfall, Flooding in Westchester, Coral Gables and Miami Beach

About 3 minutes before my brother called me from Coral Gables, dead in the water, near 57th Avenue due to wild, flooding Phil Ferro tweeted the following tweet! I had JUST retweeted when my brother texted me and then called.



Phil Ferro On Twitter:
"Rain soaked streets have lead to a Flood Advisory."


Note the wording, very good word usage here...correct in that they tried to slam the door after the proverbial horse floated by...

Seriously... this was predicted by many weather models and long range forecasts and yet... it seems to have caught everyone by surprise. I know...there are big issues out there. The HEAT and I don't mean the weather kind.. the draft by the Miami Dolphins... the question of where Tebow will land and what the JETS will do with their remaining FIVE quarterbacks... but hey it's almost May in Miami and that means rain, especially when old fronts die out and linger longer and lows develop at the tail end of dying fronts.

Pics from my brother:

and one from my old, iconic drug store on the corner of Bird Road at the edge of the Gables...

(Got my first copy of Cat's Cradle in there when I was really young and saw my first dust devil across the street where they would always form at the edge of the stores on the North Side of the street there)

My brother refused to get out of the car and take pictures... he drove slowly down the middle of the street. Down by US 1 at Publix the water in the parking lot was almost too high to drive, but hey.. a guys got to do what a guys got to do to get his lunchtime sushi...

Alfred Spellman, my friend and fellow Miami Beach local co-founder of rakontur and producer of Cocaine Cowboy fame, posted this picture on Twitter. A typical day in Miami Beach after a heavy rain. If you want a "sure bet" you can bet that Monad Terrace on Miami Beach will look like it's been reclaimed by Biscayne Bay. Maybe all that dredging of the land back when wasn't a great idea, but you would think 60 years plus after the 1920s they'd have figured out how to resolve the flooding problem.. but no... it goes on and on and on. From Lincoln Road to 8th or 9th Street it always looks like the land down under water... or as Alfred and my brother always call it "a 3rd World Republic"

"Alfred Spellman ‏@AlfredSpellman

2h

Miami Beach: you cant be a first-class city when your streets look like a Third World capital after a brief storm. pic.twitter.com/EbhUIHa1Zb"

If you live here tomorrow............it's probably gonna look a lot like the picture above if it rains again the way it did today. If you have to travel Indian Creek or Collins Avenue to the North...God help you.

That cute "point of land" was not there originally, it was fixed up for the creation of the Flamingo Hotel which was built by Carl Fisher who "smoothed out" and created more land to the west of Alton Road for his empire of bayside hotels in the 1920s. The original waterfront followed Alton Road before he extended it out a bit...in the same way he created those beautiful islands that you drive across on the Venetian Causeway.


Nice blog to read, great history there:
http://belleisleblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/belle-isle1.jpg

Another image of the old hotel that sat where many flooded apartments sit tonight on Miami Beach.



That's legendary Gar Wood's favorite speed boat "Baby Gar" which entertained the guests who would watch it race by in the bay...on sunny days..

Read up on Carl Fisher. There are books all over the place. Stop by Books and Books on Lincoln Road to learn more. He was our own sort of Gatsby, except he got the girl... for a while.....

http://www.booksandbooks.com



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_G._Fisher

Keeping in mind the hurricane season, they also said this was the most rain reported in some sites since 1945. You connect the dots... with the 1945 hurricane season and this coming year and be aware that 1945 was a banner, wet, crazy year for Miami as tropical weather came at it from every direction:



2013 Hurricane Season is a mere month away gang, you can't let time get away from you. Now is the time to prepare, plan and figure out what you would do and where you would go in case of a hurricane. If you don't believe it can happen to you... it can. Andrew happened, Sandy happened... there are plenty more named storms where those two came from...

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21010505101842/miami-dade-hit-with-heavy-rain/

Official flood warning below:

"NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL

FLASH FLOOD STATEMENT
257 PM EDT TUE APR 30 2013

FLC086-302030-
/O.CON.KMFL.FF.W.0001.000000T0000Z-130430T2030Z/
/00000.0.ER.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/
MIAMI-DADE FL-
257 PM EDT TUE APR 30 2013

...A FLASH FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 430 PM EDT FOR EAST
CENTRAL MIAMI-DADE COUNTY...

AT 250 PM EDT...LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS REPORTED FLASH 
FLOODING OVER THE WARNED AREA. IN AND AROUND THE MIRACLE 
MILE...WATER HAD INUNDATED PARKING LOTS...STREETS...AND ENTERED 
STRUCTURES.

ALTHOUGH HEAVY RAIN HAS ENDED...FLOODWATER WILL TAKE SOME TIME TO 
RECEDE...THUS THE FLASH FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

DO NOT DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE INTO AREAS WHERE THE WATER COVERS THE
ROADWAY. THE WATER DEPTH MAY BE TOO GREAT TO ALLOW YOUR CAR TO CROSS
SAFELY. MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND"

(an hour or two earlier... might have been nice, just saying....)

Besos Bobbi
Ps...song tune for the land down under water.........


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jHXu86O01w (skip the commercial ;) unless you don't want to...)