Already flooded, South Florida feeling wrath of Eta

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida. (AP) — Torrential rain from Tropical Storm Eta caused dangerous flooding across Florida’s most densely populated urban areas on Monday after it made landfall in the Florida Keys.

Cars were stranded and entire neighbourhoods were swamped as flash floods rose in areas where the water had no place to drain.

The system’s wide reach and heavy rains posed a serious threat across South Florida, an area already drenched from more than 14 inches of rain last month.

Eta could dump an additional 6 to 12 inches, forecasters said.

“In some areas, the water isn’t pumping out as fast as it’s coming in,” warned Miami Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz.

Eta’s center hit land late Sunday as it blew over Lower Matecumbe, in the middle of the chain of small islands that form the Florida Keys.

It was moving into the Gulf of Mexico early Monday near where the Everglades meet the sea, with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour.

It was centred south of Naples, moving west-northwest at 13 miles per hour.

Forecasters said it could re-intensify into a minimal hurricane as it slowly moves up the southwest Gulf Coast, centred just far enough offshore to maintain its strength while dumping vast amounts of water across the lower third of the Florida peninsula.

Eta also wasn’t done yet with Cuba, just 90 miles south of Florida, where the storm continued to swell rivers and flood coastal zones on Monday.

Some 25,000 were evacuated with no reports of deaths, but rainfall continued, with total accumulations of up to 25 inches predicted.

Eta initially hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane before wreaking havoc around Central America.

Authorities from Panama to Mexico were still surveying the damage after days of torrential rain.

Official death tolls totalled at least 68 people, but hundreds more were missing and many thousands were in shelters after flash floods tore through communities of improvised homes on unstable mountainsides.

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