KEY LARGO, Fla. — When seawater flooded their Florida paradise for 40 straight days, the Miami Herald took notice and put their frontline fight against rising tides on the front page.
Now, for the people who call Key Largo home, it’s been more than 80 days – and the ocean is still submerging their neighborhoods every day.
The New York Times reports people are having to scramble their routines to avoid the ‘king tides’ that keep turning streets into stagnant rivers. Even an inch or two of saltwater is enough to splash up and rust out a car’s undercarriage. According to a local newspaper, 215 homes are affected. They're all along canals, and the water on the roads around them ranges anywhere from ankle to calf-deep.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) says a ‘King Tide’ is an exceptionally high tide – a natural phenomenon caused by the moon moving closer to Earth. It's the kind of flooding that seems to pop up out of nowhere on a beautiful sunny day.
The lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Key West told The New York Times that this year – it's worse. Chris Rothwell said Hurricane Dorian and other tropical systems messed with the Gulf Stream current, and that's causing high tides to surge up to 18 inches higher than expected.
The leaders of Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties have all agreed that climate change is the ultimate culprit. In 2010, they formed the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which allows them to coordinate responses to current issues and prepare for future problems.
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