FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – Tropical Storm Eta peeked out Tuesday in front of western Cuba after it moved away from South Florida, causing a flood that flooded entire neighborhoods and filled some houses with water.
The 28th typhoon of a record hurricane season, the first this year to make landfall in Florida. And now, a typhoon number 29 has formed in the North Atlantic: Theta took shape on Monday night, overshadowing the record set in 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma arrive on the Gulf Coast.
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After beating Nicaragua like a category four hurricane and killing more than a hundred people from Mexico to Panama, Eta delivered torrential rains to Cuba and South Florida before heading to the Gulf of Mexico. With no strong directional wind to advise its trajectory, the typhoon back veered westward in an inverted S-curve pattern.
On Tuesday morning, it stayed just north of the Yucatan Canal between Cuba and Mexico, with winds of 60 mph (95 km/h). Meteorologists said he would stay almost tied to the desk all day before moving north later in the week, but I’m not sure where he’ll land again.
Eta continued to grow rivers and flood the coastal areas of Cuba. Another 25,000 people were evacuated without any deaths, but the rains continued, with total accumulations of up to 63 centimeters (25 inches).
The rain also continued to fall on Tuesday in South Florida, where they are expected to accumulate up to 23 inches. Eta made landfall slightly on Sunday night when he blew over Lower Matecumbe Caye on his way to the Gulf of Mexico, but spilled water on densely populated Monroe neighborhoods in Palm Beach counties.
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The people of Florida are very familiar with the heavy tropical rains that fall like a clock on summer afternoons. It was anything else: a century-old rain event called Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis. “Once the ground is saturated, the water has no room to go,” Trantalis said.
“I looked out and said, “Oh my God, it’s going up, it’s going up!” said Cynthia Rowe in Miami Gardens.
“Now I have fish in my backyard and everything is difficult,” Davie resident Troy Rodriguez said with some irony.
No deaths were reported in Florida, unlike Central America and Mexico, where the death toll increases.
Almost a week after the Eta accident in Nicaragua, the Panamanian government in Guatemala has reported more than 100 deaths and an even greater number missing. Major floods and landslides have affected thousands of others in countries already suffering with the economic effect. about the pandemic.
In Florida, the rain broke one of the largest COVID-19 checkpoints in the state at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami-Dade County, authorities said. Throughout the pandemic, this is one of the busiest places to get a diagnosis of coronavirus. until Wednesday or Thursday. At least seven other state control sites were expected to remain closed on Tuesday.
“That’s very wrong. In the last 20 years, I had never noticed anything like this,” said Tito Carvalho, owner of a car radio company in Fort Lauderdale and estimated that the water is 3 feet (about a meter) deep in some places. Some parts of his company broke through the floods, he added.
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Firefighters pulled a user out of a car that entered a canal Sunday night in Lauderhill, north of Miami, the patient was hospitalized in critical condition, the government said, and a semitrailer hanging on the palmetto increased the highway in Miami, the Florida Highway Patrol said. , after the driving force lost control.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Twitter that Floridans will be watching the typhoon for the next few days. Although this typhoon has moved offshore, it could create harmful situations on the Gulf Coast by the end of this week,” he tweeted.
Associated Press editors Adriana Gomez-Licon in Miami, Cody Jackson in Fort Lauderdale, Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg and Haleluya Hadero in Atlanta contributed to the report.
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