Lake County slammed by 16 inches of rain in hours; flash flood emergency unleashes chaos

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson reports from Lake County, FL, where 16 inches of rain in 6 hours triggered a rare flash flood emergency, washing out roads and flooding homes.

Transcript

00:00Welcome back to AccuWeather Ahead.

00:07Central Florida is in cleanup mode after a night of extreme rain.

00:11In Lake County, Florida, a rare flash flood emergency washed out roads,

00:15stranded motorists, and flooded several homes.

00:17AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson has more on the damage.

00:20And what's next as advisories linger?

00:24After some wild weather in Central Florida on Sunday,

00:27it is major cleanup as we head through today.

00:30Now, I'm in Mount Dora, which is in the interior part of Central Florida.

00:34Over my shoulder is Donnelly Street, and it is completely washed out just behind me.

00:39It is just one of a dozen or so roads that are either washed out

00:43or shut down from the flash flooding that moved through the area late Sunday night.

00:49Now, a rare flash flood emergency was issued in Lake County,

00:53and that has not happened since Hurricane Ian in 2022.

00:58So, a lot of rain came down in this area.

01:00The Doppler radar estimates are anywhere from 12 to 16 inches of rain

01:05in just the course of six hours or less.

01:08Now, we talked to the mayor of Mount Dora, who has lived here since the 1970s.

01:12We had 16.24 inches of rain fall in four hours.

01:19And behind us, they're fixing a water main that got washed out.

01:23I mean, this, obviously, this hill's been here since I was a kid.

01:27So, you know, we've never obviously seen anything like this.

01:30I came down the street.

01:32I saw the police officers, and they had the road blocked off.

01:37So, I still didn't realize that it was that bad until I got out.

01:42I came back and parked over there and got out and walked over.

01:46Parts of east central Florida also hit hard in Brevard County.

01:49Many areas reporting standing water flood warnings all along coastal Brevard County last night.

01:56Things will markedly improve today.

01:58Flash flood watch, though, still remains up for this area of Florida through 7 and 8 p.m. tonight.

02:05Reporting in Lake County, I'm Leslie Hudson for AccuWeather.

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