(13 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Miami, Florida – 13 June 2024
++STARTS AND ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Rico, tow truck driver:
“It looked like the beginning of a zombie movie. Just cars littered everywhere, on top of sidewalks, in the median, in the middle of the street, no lights on. Just craziness, you know. Abandoned cars everywhere.”
++BLACK FRAME++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Rico, tow truck driver:
“I have a, a young lady whose car is stuck in the water, and I can’t even get to it. It’s so deep. So we’re going to have to wait until the water recedes.”
++BLACK FRAME++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Rico, tow truck driver:
“Yeah, I was ready for it. I’m born and raised in Miami, you know when it’s coming. I don’t understand, years and years of this, every year, it’s the same thing, It’s just getting worse and worse, and for some reason people just keep going through the puddles.”
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Rico, tow truck driver:
“I was out probably all day, and then out probably until three in the morning. I probably took maybe, I don’t even know, maybe like 25-30 cars out of the water. There was a mom who didn’t want to tow her car and she was in the car, the water was coming in through the doors and stuff and she had two young kids. So I tried to help her get her kids and her out to safety and she just left the car abandoned. Then came a bus driver with one of those accordion buses, giant metro Dade bus came, tried to go through the grass, he got stuck, everyone on the bus was stuck. Insanity yesterday.”
AP video by Daniel Kozin
STORYLINE:
A tropical disturbance that brought a rare flash flood emergency to much of southern Florida delayed flights at two of the state’s largest airports and left vehicles waterlogged and stalled in some of the region’s lowest-lying streets.
“Looked like the beginning of a zombie movie,” said Ted Rico, a tow truck driver who spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning helping to clear the streets of stalled vehicles. “There’s cars littered everywhere, on top of sidewalks, in the median, in the middle of the street, no lights on. Just craziness, you know. Abandoned cars everywhere.”
Rico, of One Master Trucking Corp., was born and raised in Miami and said he was ready for the emergency.
“You know when its coming,” he said. “Every year it’s just getting worse, and for some reason people just keep going through the puddles.”
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