South Flori­da kept a wary eye on a fore­cast that called for more rain as it cleaned up Thurs­day from an un­prece­dent­ed storm sys­tem that dumped up­wards of 2 feet of rain in a mat­ter of hours, caus­ing wide­spread flood­ing, clos­ing the Fort Laud­erdale air­port, and turn­ing thor­ough­fares in­to rivers.

Flooding lingers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Thursday, April 13, 2023 after heavy rain pounded South Florida on Wednesday. South Florida is keeping a wary eye on a forecast that calls for rain a day after nearly a foot fell in a matter of hours. The rains caused widespread flooding, closed the Fort Lauderdale airport and turned thoroughfares into rivers. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Joe Cavaretta

Fort Laud­erdale is­sued a state of emer­gency as flood­ing per­sist­ed in parts of the city. Crews had worked through the night to at­tend res­cue calls, but there were no im­me­di­ate re­ports of in­juries or deaths.

Tow truck dri­ver Kei­th Hick­man told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that he saw aban­doned cars “float­ing like boats” in the streets of Fort Laud­erdale.

“There were hun­dreds of cars up and down here,” he said. “It was un­be­liev­able. I have nev­er seen cars bumper boat­ing each oth­er and float­ing. And a truck would come by and the wake would push the cars in­to the oth­er cars and they were just float­ing. I’ve nev­er seen any­thing like it.”

Aman­da Valen­tine was dri­ving when she re­ceived a warn­ing about flash flood­ing on her phone.

“The wa­ter start­ed ris­ing, I thought I was go­ing to drown,” Valen­tine told the AP, adding that she was ter­ri­fied when she couldn’t open her car door or roll the win­dows down. “Noth­ing was work­ing. All the lights were go­ing on in my car, so noth­ing was op­er­at­ing. And I thought, I’m go­ing to drown. I called my par­ents like, I’m go­ing to die. Like I’m go­ing to drown. There’s no way for me to get out of this car. And they couldn’t help me. I called 911 and they told me they couldn’t help me.”

She even­tu­al­ly forced the door open and got to safe­ty.

People try and save valuables, wading through high flood waters in a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., neighborhood on Thursday, April 13, 2023. South Florida is keeping a wary eye on a forecast that calls for rain a day after nearly a foot fell in a matter of hours. The rains caused widespread flooding, closed the Fort Lauderdale airport and turned thoroughfares into rivers. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Joe Cavaretta

In Broward Coun­ty, where rains start­ed Mon­day be­fore the heav­i­est rains ar­rived Wednes­day af­ter­noon, crews worked Thurs­day to clear drains and fire up pumps to clear stand­ing wa­ter.

The Red Cross set up a stag­ing area to help res­i­dents whose homes were flood­ed, pro­vid­ing them with blan­kets and cof­fee, of­fi­cials said. The stag­ing area al­so act­ed as a re­uni­fi­ca­tion point for fam­i­lies.

Fort Laud­erdale City Hall re­mained closed Thurs­day with ground-floor flood­ing and no pow­er. A tun­nel car­ry­ing U.S. Route 1 un­der a riv­er and a ma­jor street in down­town Fort Laud­erdale was al­so closed, along with some ramps to In­ter­state 95.

Passengers wait for flights to resume after Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood International Airport was closed due to flooding, Thursday, April 13, 2023, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Fort Lauderdale issued a state of emergency as flood conditions continued through many areas. Over 25 inches of rain fell in South Florida since Monday causing widespread flooding. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Marta Lavandier

Fort Laud­erdale Hol­ly­wood In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, which closed Wednes­day evening, won’t re­open un­til 5 a.m. Fri­day due to de­bris and mas­sive flood­ing.

By ear­ly Thurs­day, enough wa­ter had drained to al­low peo­ple to dri­ve on the up­per lev­el — or de­par­tures — road to pick up wait­ing pas­sen­gers. But the en­trance to the low­er-lev­el, or ar­rivals, road re­mained closed, of­fi­cials tweet­ed.

Shawn Bhat­ti, a me­te­o­rol­o­gist with the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice in Mi­a­mi, said the re­gion re­ceived “an un­prece­dent­ed amount” of rain. The weath­er ser­vice was still con­firm­ing to­tals, but some gauges showed up to 25 inch­es (63.5 cen­time­ters) of rain­fall.

“For con­text, with­in a six hour pe­ri­od the amount that fell is about a 1 in 1,000 chance of hap­pen­ing with­in a giv­en year. So, it’s a very his­tor­i­cal type of event,” Bhat­ti said.

More show­ers, thun­der­storms and lo­cal flood­ing were in the fore­cast from the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice on Thurs­day morn­ing. An ad­di­tion­al 2 to 4 inch­es (5 to 10 cen­time­ters) of rain was pos­si­ble.

Video tak­en by wit­ness­es showed wa­ter com­ing in the door at an air­port ter­mi­nal and a vir­tu­al riv­er rush­ing down the tar­mac be­tween planes.

In down­town Fort Laud­erdale, video showed a man swim­ming to the curb along Broward Boule­vard as as cars rolled by. Dri­vers al­so record­ed them­selves rolling through streets where brown, swirling wa­ter rose near­ly to car hoods.

Broward Coun­ty schools can­celed class­es Thurs­day, in­clud­ing af­ter-school and ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, af­ter wa­ter flood­ed hall­ways and class­rooms at some schools the day be­fore.

“The schools be­came in­ac­ces­si­ble to par­ents, par­ents at­tempt­ing to pick up their stu­dents,” Toni Barnes, Broward Schools di­rec­tor of emer­gency man­age­ment, told WPLG-TV. “Staff mem­bers at­tempt­ing to leave cam­pus­es — they were un­able — they were trapped in their cars. We had to call fire res­cue to as­sist our par­ents out of their cars to get them in­to the school be­cause they were trapped.”

The heavy rains al­so shut down South Flori­da’s high-speed com­muter rail ser­vice, called Bright­line, for a brief time on Wednes­day evening. Ser­vice has since been re­stored.

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By FREI­DA FRIS­ARO and DANIEL KOZIN

FORT LAUD­ERDALE, Fla. (AP)