‘It’s all gone.’ How families are coping in a Broward community that went underwater
A small neighborhood, Edgewood, sits just north of Fort Lauderdale’s airport. The streets, with tightly packed houses, are usually filled with working people who like to help each other.
Now they’re filled with water. And misery.
This small piece of Broward County is one of the hardest hit areas after a four-day stretch of torrential downpours and flash flooding.
Dozens of cars stuck as floodwaters reach above their hoods. Homes partially submerged and filled with a few inches to many feet of water.
Early figures show nearby Fort Lauderdale got more than two feet of rain on Wednesday — historic amounts in a 1-in-500-year storm, the National Weather Service said.
A surprise after the workday
Denis Mendez, a 32-year-old mother, moved to Edgewood three weeks ago.
A new stove ready for installation, a TV still with the manufacturer’s sticker, freshly built furniture all fill her home.
After her workday, she slumped into bed Wednesday and dozed off as rain fell outside. She didn’t think much of it.
Then she awoke to her husband, Isain Lopez.
“The water is starting to get inside,” he told her.
The couple, with the help of her 15-year-old son, Santiago, began lifting all their belongings and furniture off the floor. But the water kept rising.
As inches turned to a foot of flooding, they knew it was time to leave.
They stuffed what they could in the car and drove to a friend’s house a few streets away.
“I never expected something like this to happen,” she said in Spanish. “I haven’t experienced flooding like this before.”
The next day, the three walked nearly a mile through their community’s flooded streets to pick up belongings they left behind.
As she opened her front door, water spilled out, pushing a small black and white rat into her flooded driveway.
Denis Mendez, 32, took us through her partially submerged home.
She just moved in three months ago.
Story in the works. @MiamiHerald pic.twitter.com/ayQgbBRZ67— Devoun Cetoute (@devoun_cetoute) April 13, 2023
Slipping into her entryway, almost falling, she solemnly slogged into the kitchen to begin transferring food from her fridge to an empty bag.
The living room and kitchen had at least a foot of flooding, with a clear-marked water line another foot above the surface.
She threw some clothes together, as Lopez and Santiago collected other belongings.
The family had no idea what their next steps would be or how long the flooding would stay.
“We’re going to try to recuperate something and look for where to live,” she said with teary eyes. “Three weeks living here and now everything we bought, we just started, is all gone.”
In a kayak
A few streets away, Erick Martinez, a 16-year-old student at Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale, spent the day kayaking with his small dog, Estrella, on roads that turned into rivers.
His home was flooded, and so was his uncle’s and his friend’s, as the torrential downpour swept through the neighborhood.
“It’s my first time seeing this place this flooded,” he said.
Staying optimistic
Romero Ramos was working when the rains hit Wednesday. The parking lot of his work began to flood, moving everyone to head home to stem the possible coming damage.
What awaited him was something he’d never seen.
“We arrived to our parking areas and the water was going inside the home — 8 to 19 inches inside,” he said in Spanish.
Ramos said he’d never seen it this bad and it was the first time water entered his home.
The next day, with flooding still inside and water staining the walls, he chose to see the situation with clarity and optimism.
“These are things that happen in life so we have to face this because who has the control is God and we can’t go against His will,” Ramos said.
He’s not sure what he’ll do next, but hopes the water will go down so he can start to clean and rebuild.
“That is how it is my friend,” he said. “The most important thing is that we are alive and life goes on.”
