Thanks to my friend Justin Falango for sending these shots of high tide on Miami Beach taken this morning. Keep in mind, it hasn’t rained in more than 24 hours.
Alton Road: Yep, that’s salt water. It’s coming up from the storm drains.
31 street & Indian Creek Drive
31 street & Indian Creek Drive (same intersection as above)
This wasn’t caused by a huge rainstorm or hurricane, just a normal high tide in September. Our watertable reaches its highest level in October (due to the rainy season). Now this wouldn’t be a problem except that the Miami Beach storm drainage system is already at or below the high water level (and it is a gravity based system). It is very telling that on days like today, when it hasn’t rained, water creeps comes backward through the drain at high tide. Consider what will happen when it does rain. It won’t take a huge rainstorm (like the one this past June) to see the streets of Miami Beach completely under water. Welcome to the future present Miami Beach.
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Wow, that’s a scary thought. It’s been a while since I’ve lived on the beach but I remember it always gets flooded on Alton in that area. Always assuming it was due to rain, it’s a little unsettling to think it looked like that with no rain. Definitely explains why cars floated down the street months ago within a few short hours of heavy rainfall.
I noticed the really high tide this morning as I rode to synagogue and crossed the Miami Beach/North Bay Village bridge over the intracoastal. The water was barely 3 inches under the cement barriers on each side.
Last year (practically to the date) I got some pics of high tide in Normandy Isles and yeah, same story.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmperez/tags/hightide/
Scary indeed. More people need to be aware that this is happening now, not in some as-of-yet unidentified future.
Daniel, thanks for sharing!
As if they had read this, the following link came in via the @MiamiBeachNews Twitter: http://bit.ly/2uYVq4
Followed by:
Doesn’t virtually all of Miami Beach fit that description?
Not all of it, but alot of it. At least they are starting to get the word out there.
I have seen water come up high too. Miami Beach has that all the time. Check out the furnished vacation rentals here.. Better than a hotel for sure. .
http://mimobeach.com
dov
Brickell ave, by the 4 seasons hotel, was wet yesterday and today. Not nearly as bad as south beach, but noticeably wet.
This morning, Normandy Isle:
http://pikchur.com/g2z
http://pikchur.com/g3E
[…] meant to post about the flooding all across Miami Beach a couple of weeks ago. At the time ocean water was coming up every day at high tide, some days more […]
Exactly 364 days from the last major flood, Miami Beach was massively flooded out again on June 4, 2010. There are 4 sources of water that have intruded our fair city:
1.) Tidal Influenced Salt Water
2.) Storm-Water from rains
3.) Ground Water
4.) Sewage
There are two important points worthy of elevating, no pun intended. The first is that the City of Miami Beach and the State of Florida have been grossly negligent for years. The State is responsible for Alton Road and the City for just about everything else from a flood control perspective. Here are the two issues:
1.) The level of sea rise has been 9 inches since the underground infrastructure and outfalls were designed and implemented. We have an ancient system here in Miami Beach. Also, silt and organic matter that has decomposed have caused the Bay and Indian Creek to fill from this sediment process thus reducing capacity.
2.) Miami Beach has grown so fast in the last 10 years with no comprehensive stormwater managment plan in place and no comprehensive construction plan, instead its been a series of band aids irresponsibly done by amateurs.
Okay so enough on blame. Now its up to us, the Community to pull together and make things happen, including going to City Commission Meetings and writing your commissioners and following up with them repeatedly. This is how it works. Also, since its going to take years to get this all built, we must have a plan for what to do with the victims of each of these floods. This includes homeowners, renters, business owners, land owners and renters and even the impacts of lost business. The adversity that ignoring this problem creates is almost immeasurable. What I would suggest is an open thread on what the City can do or should do to offset all of this damage and what you would do if you had a reisterant on West Avenue and it was filled with 2-3 feet of water, you lost your car, insurance stopped insuring you and further insurance just defrauded you out of payment and your resteraunt has been rebuilt three or more times constantly under reconstruciton. How does this effect you? How does this serve the community who otherwise would want to go to your resterant? Should you be paying the city for City services under these circumstances? Hmmmm……Its time to hone in on what this community is going to do to keep the locals from abandoning ship and to keep us from becoming like New Orleans or worse.