Miami Mayor: City Flooding "Like a Hurricane" Again Today Thanks to King Tides

Thanks to sea-level rise, Florida's unique topography, and poor city planning, areas of Miami-Dade County look like a hurricane hit them today. But there's not even a tropical storm in town. Instead, mere weeks after a real hurricane did damage major parts of South Florida, the Miami area is massively flooding thanks to a combination of some moderate storms hitting during king tides, when the sea is at its highest point all year.

Photos of Miami circulating online today are difficult to distinguish from the city during Hurricane Irma. And the high tides aren't limited to just Miami Beach. On the mainland, Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, who is pushing a $200 million sea-level-rise mitigation and resiliency plan, has been driving around town all day taking note of the flooding. He's not pleased.

"Today, Miami is flooding as if a hurricane went through it," Regalado tweeted just before noon.

This is bad. We're only beginning to see the impacts of climate change in Miami, and flooding is already shutting the city down multiple days per year. The National Weather Service says a flooding advisory will remain in effect across most of mainland Miami until 2:15 p.m. thanks to poorly designed city drainage systems.

On the "dry" side of Brickell pic.twitter.com/S0UWgXGNJy

— Tomás Regalado (@Tomas_Regalado) October 5, 2017

This is in #CoconutGrove. Tides are high is several places in #Miami. Please take precautions. #KingTides pic.twitter.com/LgikNMj1rn

— City of Miami (@CityofMiami) October 5, 2017

#KingTides are happening now. Please avoid areas if possible. This is NW 6th Street and 7th Avenue in #Miami pic.twitter.com/lmAdbhZCjh

— City of Miami (@CityofMiami) October 5, 2017

Around 10 a.m., the City of Miami issued a warning basically telling drivers to avoid downtown. A map the city released warned that streets along the major Biscayne Boulevard corridor from the Upper Eastside south to downtown could become too flooded to navigate. The city said the same could be true for portions of the Venetian Causeway into Miami Beach.

View map for #KingTide areas. Driving through floodwater NOT advisable. It may be deeper than appears & unseen debris can cause flat tires pic.twitter.com/5UrSSKfUVU

— City of Miami (@CityofMiami) October 5, 2017

Naturally, Miami Beach is also pretty much a no-go zone all day today. Miami Herald reporter Joey Flechas has snapped multiple images of flooded roads and streets across the island. He also noted online that the flooding is comparable to what happened when Irma hit.

I tweeted pic of my street in Miami Beach during Hurricane Irma. Water was about this level then. Today, no hurricane. It’s #kingtide pic.twitter.com/zobQ6lz8dR

— Joey Flechas (@joeflech) October 5, 2017

Over on Normandy Isle, on Rue Bordeaux pic.twitter.com/NBEdy46p13

— Joey Flechas (@joeflech) October 5, 2017

Barring major changes, this is the new normal in Miami. The dire, city-sinking-into-Atlantis warnings that countless scientists and major magazines have predicted is not coming in the future — it's already here, and city officials are struggling to react. The same areas of the county that flooded today were also inundated when the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily hit in August.

Miami Beach is rushing to complete a $400 million storm-water-pumping system designed to mitigate the impacts of tidal-flooding events such as this one. Since the Emily flooding fiasco, where multiple pumps in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood failed because of power outages, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has repeatedly gone on the defensive, reminding the public that only 15 percent of the pump upgrades have been installed so far. Moreover, the city said those pumps aren't even designed to prevent flooding from major storms, which are likely to knock power out to the systems — a statement that angered many residents.

But there isn't much city leaders can do. They're not in a position to, say, force major polluters to stop spewing carbon into the air or broker emissions deals with the Indian and Chinese governments.

Mayor Regalado is now pushing his own upgrade plan and campaigning to persuade residents to vote for the $400 million "Miami Forever" proposal in November. Half of that money would go toward drainage-improvement and storm-water-pumping projects in areas such as downtown and Brickell, which are underwater again today. The plan would also pay for Miami to raise its seawalls. Regalado tweeted earlier today that the existing walls were swallowed this morning by the king tides.