guard by how quickly the rain fell, how quickly water rose and they couldn t get to them in time. now you don t have scenes in queens like you have in pennsylvania where people are still being plucked from homes. but you certainly have the damage that has been done like this. they re trying to clear it away now. you have lingering damage in the city with subways not running, real problems there. worth pointing out that so many people in the city rely on subways to get to and from jobs. they don t have any other way to move around. if they re not running, life comes to a standstill. coming out this morning, it was remarkable on the drive here from where i live in manhattan, there are highways where they re dry, but what you see on the side are cars abandoned. some of them with lights blinking, nobody in them, where water had been last night.
jacksonville. let s go live to south florida. live look, a lot of stranded cars. get a few things you might need and head back home. stick with focus on broward county, want to check in with rebecca vargas. the effort to recover there. the cleanup continues here on a 1a along fort lauderdale beach, they are cleaning up the road, getting the sand off the road and back onto the beach, joining me is the mayor of the city of fort lauderdale. everybody is saying we really dodged a bullet especially in these parts of south florida. what do you think? i would agree with everyone s assessment. we are fortunate and blessed and it could ve been worse. as you can see from what we are cleaning up, this is a minimal storm surge and a category 1 hurricane. i can t imagine what would have happened if irma had hit us head on. it would ve been a completely
the owner of this car, we saw, come out here, try to get it moving. they re not getting it anywhere at this point. you can see these bands we re feeling right now. they re extremely strong. the winds, the rain and obviously just pushing this floodwater west. we re hearing from the county at least 20 streets or intersections seeing this kind of flooding. we re seeing cars drive up to this intersection, seeing what s going on, having to turn around, make a u-turn, realizing it s just not safe to pass. we ve got some first responders out here. these are the only people that should be on the road. i m going to turn to the side so it s not as strong. this is what s going on here in ft. pierce. the track of the storm is west but we are still feeling it and feeling it very strong. this is a message to everybody out there. just stay home. it is not safe out here on the roads. you don t know how deep these waters are. look at these stranded cars.
show the amount of rainfall expected across this part of the country. it s just unbelievable coming from a meteorological standpoint. let s set the scene. we ve got stranded cars behind me. there s parking lots behind me with people that have ditched their vehicles because they have been inundate by floodwaters. it has been a long and difficult night for search and rescue teams here. we have our swift water rescues that are still ongoing. we have people bunkered down in shelters. the latest figures there 8,000 people in houston alone. 30,000 people in shelters across the flood-affected area. now to put it into perspective. just how large of an airof this imminent threat taking place now, 50,000 square miles. that s roughly the size of louisiana. incredible. also incredible are the heroic rescue stories coming out of the area. i talked to a rescuer yesterday who went door to door with his own personal boat, going through
don t deal with disruptions. get better internet installed on your schedule. comcast business. built for business. coming up on 14 minutes past the hour some southern california roads buried by tons of mud during flash flooding last week reopened. crews using heavy equipment pulled dozens of stranded cars and trucks free. there were violent thunderstorms rolling through the phoenix area last night bringing heavy rains, light nipping and strong winds. officials say some 20,000 people lost power and from the upper midwest to the northeast, look at this. some residents saw their first snow of the season. oswego county, new york, saw up to nine inches of lake-effect snow. bill karins tell me this is an anomaly. you want it to continue? no, no. i want some warm weather. you got it coming your way for many people that saw snow they ll probably be in the 60s