vijf dagen onweer aan een stuk hier. deze middag had ik prijs en liep mijn garage onder. De rest van het huis ligt gelukkig bovenop de garage zodat ik gewoon mijn auto moest verzetten.
Nog nooit zo'n regen gezien en ik woon hier nogthans al jaren.
BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) - Emergency officials urged residents to evacuate more than 600 homes downstream from Lake Manatee on Sunday as the rising lake, fed by days of rain, threatened to spill over a dam.
Some nearby homes were already flooding Sunday morning as officials released water into the Manatee River from the dam's flood gates to keep the lake - already 5 feet higher than normal - within its banks.
It took divers and crews with cranes and cables several hours to pry open a third flood gate, which had jammed shut. But even with all three gates open, the lake was continuing to rise by 2,300 cubic feet per second.
"That lake is going to get so full it's going to get to the emergency spillways," said Larry Leinhauser, spokesman for Manatee County public safety emergency operations. "The problem is we've never used them."
Engineers said the concrete dam wouldn't be damaged, but Leinhauser said residents living in a mostly rural area stretching along the Manatee River for about four miles west of the lake were "strongly advised" to leave Sunday morning.
Forecasters expected up to 6 more inches of rain in the area during the day. As much as a foot had fallen in the area southeast of Tampa since midweek, and a flood watch was in effect in 18 central and south Florida counties.
"We've gotten torrential downpours here. It's been a mess," Leinhauser said. "Like my neighborhood. I could have swam out of it this morning."
An area of deep tropical moisture in the Louisiana Gulf Coast has generated heavy showers and thunderstorms for days, said David Rittenberry of the National Weather Service. Parts of Manatee County reported up to 20 inches last week.
|
