Windy, rainy weather expected through Saturday
MIAMI - Several communities are preparing for a windy and wet next couple of days.
On Thursday, scattered rain swept in on the breeze. The precipitation is expected to continue through Saturday night.
On South Beach, the surf is choppy and there's a risk of rip currents and coastal flooding. And with the wind advisory, the Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management says preparing for flooding is important no matter where you live.
Erika Benitez with the Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management said, "This is especially true if you live in low-lying areas on near water. If you see standing water whether you are walking or driving it is never a good idea to walk or drive in flooded areas as water may be deeper than it appears hiding all kinds of hazards like debris, sharp objects or even downed power lines."
She urges everyone to, "Keep children and pets away from flooded areas and make sure you never use water that is contaminated."
Despite the drizzly weather, tourists we spoke with on South Beach were not complaining.
"It's better than what it is back in Ohio. They are waiting on snow. I will take this."
Mati Becker, a tourist from Australia had this to say, "Well, we have a cyclone where we are from in Australia."
The Department of Transportation says because of the bad weather and high wind speeds, the 79th Street Causeway is locked down.
It's not known when it'll reopen for marine traffic.
The City of Miami is prepared to activate 13 permanent water pumps and deploy 9 additional ones, if needed.
The South Florida Water Management District has been lowering canal levels since Monday.
Randy Smith, with the South Florida Water Management District, said, "What we are doing is operating the system the way it was designed. We need to get the canals as low as we can so they have the capacity to extra stormwater runoff when the rains hit hard and to do that we need to open the gates and have the water rush into the Atlantic Ocean. The challenge for us is going to be the winds and the high tides. The tides are higher than normal."
Smith said the District is monitoring their two thousand miles of canals 24 hours a day.
He says it looks like Saturday is going to be what he calls a very significant day for the district.
By Sunday, coastal Broward could see four to eight inches of rain. In Hollywood, some pumps are already running, like on flood-prone N. 14th Ave. The pumps are clearing out space in storm drains.
There is a Wind Advisory through 7 a.m. Sunday for Miami-Dade and Broward.
In Hollywood, with strong winds blowing ashore hardly anyone ventured out onto the Hollywood Broadwalk.
"The weather is so weird today. It's super strong, a lot of wind," said Monica Medina
All that wind has city work crews working overtime, for days, laying Tiger Dam, a temporary, water fill barrier, to keep ocean water and sand from flooding onto the Broadwalk.
"They've been out there almost round the clock. This morning they were up until 2 or 3 in the morning deploying the tiger dams and the plan is for them to finish the job today," said Hollywood Emergency Manager Jaime Hernandez. Crews will lay that barrier at all 117 openings between the beach and broadwalk.
"Our original focus was to take a measured approach with the deployment of the Tiger Dams and focus on the areas that traditionally are hot spot," Hernandez said.
Video shows when no barrier is in place, sand drifts form in some areas. In locations where Tiger Dam is in place, you don't see that build-up. This is the first time it's been used here.
"This is the first time as a city we get to see how quickly we deploy these, how effective they are once deployed and in a few days see how quickly we can dismantle them, put them away and resume normal operations," Hernandez said.
He said the city is learning from this. "Going forward, the biggest takeaway from us is that we, when we have a hurricane or tropical storm coming in off the Atlantic, we're going to deploy Tiger dams at every single opening on the knee wall, on the Broadwalk ahead of the storm," said Hernandez.
Public safety officials are urging people to avoid the beaches for a couple of days because of the weather.
"We seem to have a low building in the Gulf and it's creating some high winds, extremely dangerous surf along with a lot of rain. But for us, the biggest concern is the wind, the heavy offshore winds. It is producing dangerous seas with very high chances of rip currents," said Hollywood Marine Safety Captain Boki Corsovic.
He said the chances of someone encountering dangerous conditions in the water are extremely high. He said the city's Broadwalk should also be avoided.
"The winds not only churn up the ocean, but it also creates a lot of debris, sand on the Broadwalk and that also creates a lot of trip hazards on top of maintaining your balance in the wind," he said.
"We just got done with Art Basel week so it's crazy to see the weather shift up real quick. We figured we'd just come over here to see how it is, didn't realize it was that windy, so we probably won't go in the water," said Vanessa Valadez who was on the Broadwalk.
In Melrose Manors in Fort Lauderdale, residents experience flooding often. Reside Rodney Young figures it could happen again in the next few days.
"Things are going to be flooded again. Every time it rain comes like it's been coming, consistent coming, it's going to flood," Young said.
