Lisa Thomas moved into her three-bedroom dream home in Fort Lauderdale five years ago, never expecting that an extreme rainstorm would move through town one day, sending floodwaters to destroy almost every room.
But on April 12, that’s exactly what happened.
The home Thomas shares with her husband, newborn twins and 4-year-old son was just one of 1,100 homes left with major damage after the sky dumped 26 inches of rain on Fort Lauderdale within a matter of hours.
“It’s been like a complete nightmare,” said Thomas, whose family was forced to move to her parent’s home in Boca Raton until their home is ready to live in again.
Thomas is among the many residents pleading for something to be done to protect their neighborhoods from flooding — their worries coming back to the forefront this past week as South Florida faced days of heavy rain.
Homeowners from nearby River Oaks to Las Olas Isles to Melrose Park have been begging the city to improve its drainage infrastructure for years. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of storms hitting the region, Fort Lauderdale officials say they’ve gotten the wake-up call and are responding as quickly as possible to the demand.
In the next decade, the city plans to upgrade the drainage infrastructure in 25 of Fort Lauderdale’s most flood-prone neighborhoods, including Shady Banks.
Thomas has discovered that the street outside her home in the Shady Banks neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale has no storm drains — and proposed infrastructure upgrades are nearly a decade away.
“I can’t even talk about it without crying,” Thomas said as she broke into tears. “I’m asking for basic infrastructure. And we don’t even have the basics, which blows my mind. Florida gets a lot of rain. You’d think they would have put in storm drains. I’m just asking the city to do what they should have already done. Put storm drains in the neighborhood.”
Many homeowners will have to wait years for the work to begin. In some areas, the work won’t begin until 2031 and won’t be completed until 2034.
In the first phase, Fort Lauderdale expects to spend $200 million installing and upgrading storm drains in eight neighborhoods: River Oaks, Edgewood, Durrs, Dorsey-Riverbend, Progresso Village, Southeast Isles, Victoria Park and Melrose Manors/Riverland.
Work is already underway in River Oaks and Edgewood, but the project won’t wrap up until 2025.
Work in the remaining six neighborhoods is expected to start in the next two or three years but might not be completed until 2027, Public Works Director Alan Dodd says.
The next phase calls for spending $500 million to upgrade the flood infrastructure in 17 neighborhoods.
These are the neighborhoods that made the list: Riverland Landings, Sailboat Bend, Tarpon River, Flagler Village, Harbor Isles/Inlet, Poinsettia Heights, South Middle River, Melrose Park, Shady Banks, Croissant Park, Middle River Terrace, Imperial Point, Lake Ridge, Riverland Manors/Woods, Chula Vista, Riverland Village and Lauderdale Isles.
City officials estimate the entire project won’t be done until 2034.
Most drainage systems aren’t built to handle a rainstorm that dumps 26 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, Dodd told commissioners during a recent meeting.
“We did have 26 inches of rain, which was extraordinary,” Dodd said. “But these types of rainfall events are becoming much more frequent and are impacting our residents much more than they did 10 or 20 years ago.”
The hardest-hit neighborhoods had little or no drainage infrastructure, Dodd said.
The devastating impact of the April 12 storm hit home with city officials, prompting them to accelerate the second phase of drainage work and expand the list of neighborhoods from seven to 17.
Commissioner Warren Sturman represents several low-lying neighborhoods near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that are prone to flooding, including Shady Banks.
A tree-lined neighborhood, Shady Banks has about 500 homes bordered by Interstate 95 on the west, Davie Boulevard on the north and the New River on the south and east. River Oaks, east of I-95 and north of State Road 84, has about 1,400 homes. And Edgewood, south of State Road 84 and east of I-95, has around 1,200 homes.
Thomas was pregnant with her twins when the floodwaters arrived on April 12.
Like many of her neighbors, she still has videos and photos of that unforgettable night. She took one photo of the soggy mess at 9:10 p.m.
“My son and my 14-year-old Doberman and my husband were all on the sofa trying not to get electrocuted,” she said. “Our whole house was under water. It’s been a nightmare. The stress of it all. And the PTSD. Every time it rains, I feel the worst anxiety you can ever feel.”
Making matters worse, she and her husband are now paying nearly $9,000 in property taxes for a home they can’t even live in, Thomas said.
“My husband thinks we’ll be back in our house in two months,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be back in until April of next year. We had to gut the kitchen. The bedroom. The master bathroom. Our front porch. The rooms in the back.”
Teri Schuett has lived in Shady Banks for the past 15 years, sharing the home with her husband, two dogs and a cat.
Her house flooded on April 12 and again this past week, she said.
“When it rains, everyone calls and asks, ‘Are you OK?’” she said. “I’m on 13th Court, the lowest area in the neighborhood. They call it the fishbowl.”
Like her neighbor Lisa Thomas, there are no drains on her street.
“We’ve asked for them,” Schuett said. “We were told we may get on the (project) list for 2028. That means the drains wouldn’t be installed until 2031. I think the only way you get further up the list is to get louder in our voices to the city.”
Sturman says he has gotten plenty of complaints from rain-weary homeowners in Lauderdale Isles, Croissant Park and Shady Banks too.
“But I’d say River Oaks and Edgewood are the two neighborhoods that are getting the brunt of the flooding because they’re so low lying,” Sturman said. “We chose the first eight based on the areas that flood the worst. That’s why Edgewood and River Oaks were first on the list.”
Unfortunately, the city can’t upgrade the infrastructure in every neighborhood at once, Sturman said.
“We will come up with a formula on where to start first in those next 17 neighborhoods,” he said. “We’ll look at who floods the worst and how many people are impacted in each neighborhood.”
Thomas, for one, plans to stick things out.
“That was always my dream, to live near the beach,” she said. “My husband grew up in a small town in Brazil. He’s pretty easygoing. He doesn’t have anxiety when it rains. He has a great perspective and reminds me of what’s important in life. He tells me, ‘It could be worse. We could be dead.’”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
