NORTH MIAMI – Rising rainwater made 144th Street unsafe to drive several weeks ago.
Promise Saillant took some video of the flooding. She lives in this neighborhood and says rain doesn’t subside quickly here.
“When it rains it floods instantly,” Saillant said.
It’s right near Stormwater Park, which was designed to divert some of the floodwaters away from the street.
According to the city’s website, it was a vacant lot prone to flooding until the city turned it into a community space that doubled as a stormwater reservoir.
“When it floods it’s supposed to actually clear the water out, but it doesn’t even help,” Saillant said.
Sara McDevitt lives up the street and says the park isn’t doing enough. This was what her street looked like when flooding filled up 10th Avenue a few weeks ago. She says the park shouldn’t be the only way to contain the flooding.
“The park conceptually is good, though I do feel like it’s under-engineered for the amount of water that’s in the area,” McDevitt said.
Resident Louis Presume wants to start a petition to urge the city to do more. We spoke to him when the water essentially trapped him in his house earlier this month.
“I couldn’t leave I couldn’t go to work,” Presume said. “My wife couldn’t go to work. Nobody could go to work.”
CBS News Miami reached out to the city about whether they’ll make any changes to their flood management, a spokesperson said the city is updating its stormwater master plan. It’s about 90 percent done and is expected to be done as soon as August.
Officials could not give specifics.
