Mayor Dean Trantalis gave a summary of the recovery efforts led by the City of Fort Lauderdale during Tuesday's Conference meeting. Below are the details of those efforts:
Mayor Trantalis issued a State of Emergency in the late evening hours of Wednesday, April 12. It is effective for 7 days.
Every municipality in Broward County, as well as the City of Miami, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, and many others, have assisted in the effort to respond to this emergency situation.
Our Emergency Operations Center, the nerve center during emergencies such as this, was activated Wednesday evening and remains active now.
Our team has rescued or relocated approximately 900 people who were either stranded or trapped by water, including 600 people the first night. The total number is an estimate as there has been a high volume of emergency calls and not all rescues have been reported as of yet.
The City’s comfort stations, first set up on April 13 and 14, are open and ready to serve our neighbors. The following two locations are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.
- Shirley Small Park - 1230 SW 34th Avenue
- Broward County Fleet Service Center - 2515 SW 4th Avenue
Services offered are:
- water
- food
- restrooms
- charging stations
- showers
We have a new location that replaces the one previously at Provident Park and will be serving food and water only. That location is:
- New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, located at 1321 NW 6th Street.
We partnered with the Red Cross to establish shelters at Holiday Park and First Presbyterian Church. Currently, there are 53 people being served at these locations. At its height, we were serving 110 people. To date, the Red Cross has distributed 6,413 meals to residents, as well as 640 cleanup kits and more than 1,900 other emergency assistance items.
Transportation and Mobility staff has established shuttle service in the hard-hit Edgewood neighborhood to connect neighbors there with our shelter and comfort center locations. There is a Circuit shuttle making a continuous loop through Edgewood to bring residents to the comfort center at Broward Fleet. There is also an express route to the Holiday Park Red Cross shelter location. All residents need to do is wave the shuttle down and it will stop for them.
We have also established a free on-demand service for those hard-hit areas to take residents to locations for essential services such as grocery stores, pharmacies, laundromats, banks and regional transportation. Residents can call or text 561-762-0479 to be connected with a driver.
We have had 36 pumping and vacuum trucks in operation at our peak, with 13 cities stepping in to provide resources and support. These trucks have the capacity to remove up to 5,000 gallons of water at a time.
There are 20 crews with pressure washers removing flooding sediment from sidewalks and driveways to ensure public safety.
Debris collection began on Monday and efforts have ramped up since. Today, we have trucks circulating in all areas that have been impacted, and those trucks will begin removing flood-related debris. These trucks will operate during daylight hours for safety purposes, and they will make multiple passes in the areas that have been affected.
Our team is distributing debris guidelines in English, Spanish, and Creole to help neighbors with the process for debris pick up. Neighbors should stay tuned for more information as this recovery effort continues.
