Floridians may be used to rain, but no one alive had seen the likes of the storm that swept Fort Lauderdale on April 13. The deluge brought 25.91 inches of rain to Fort Lauderdale within a 24-hour period—which, if confirmed, would clear the state’s previous record of 23.28 inches set in Key West in 1980, according to AccuWeather. The deluge appears to have been a 1,000 year storm, some meteorologists said—meaning that the odds of it happening in a given year are only about 0.1%.
The city deployed vacuum trucks and crews to clear storm drains, but the official Twitter account warned that there was simply too much water to clear the roads and the community would need to wait for water to drain naturally. With many cars abandoned in the flood, some residents used small boats to navigate the streets.
As of Friday the water had started to dissipate, and Fort Lauderdale—Hollywood International Airport, which had reported more than 30 inches of rain during the storm, had reopened. However, city officials noted that a substantial portion of the community was still flooded as of Friday afternoon.
Here are some of the most striking images from the rainstorm’s aftermath:
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