OPA-LOCKA, FLA. (WSVN) - Even throughout Wednesday night, Opa-Locka residential areas were still flooded with water.
One driver going through the area said, “You see this lake? They’ve got to do something. I came to see somebody, but I can’t. That’s crazy.”
The Glorieta Gardens Apartments in Opa-Locka has been turned into a water world. Most of the roads in the apartment complex and other neighborhoods in the area of Alexandria Lane have been completely submerged in floodwater after days of torrential rainfall.
Cellphone video captured from atop a balcony Tuesday night showed the rain dropping non-stop onto the already flooded parking lot. Many residents woke up Wednesday morning to see their apartments soaked and badly damaged.
The inside of Wendy Reddick’s apartment is completely soaked.
Reddick said, “I couldn’t go anywhere because it was under water. I couldn’t get anywhere.”
“It was rainin’, it was stormin’, however the case may be,” resident Alexis said. “My roof fell in, all this fell in — my kids’ clothes, my kids’ bedroom set.”
Alexis’s apartment is in bad shape, and she had to throw out most of her furniture after the flood. There was also electrical damage.
“The light fixture… You can hit the wall,” she said as she recorded cellphone video of herself walking through the flooded floor and hitting the wall for the light to flash on and off.
Inspectors showed up to look at the damage, and the fire department cut off the power.
“The bedroom set, I had to throw out the bedroom set with the bouncer. Everything is totaled, flooded, the whole roof coming in,” Alexis said.
With the electricity cut off as a result of the flooding, residents are worried their units will be damaged even further if fires start up.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and Red Cross arrived at the complex to help as many people as possible and put them up in hotels.
They hope the floodwaters start to recede as soon as possible.
To the south near Northeast 2nd Avenue and 71st St., Denise Marte’s apartment was so badly flooded she had to wear rain boots just to walk room to room.
Marte said, “As soon as I walked in here it just broke my heart because obviously I work real hard for the stuff that I have. This is what I come home to.”
Neighbors are dealing with similar problems after the record rainfall, and they worried their trouble has only just begun now that the electricity has been cut off.
“What? Your lights off. That’s when the mold comes back. That’s when the mold gonna damage the unit. That’s how that goes,” said another resident who didn’t want to appear on camera.
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