ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 King tides are making waves along Florida\u2019s east coast. The unusually high tides have caused flooding in parts of St. Lucie County, prompting temporary closures of beach access points and a coastal flood advisory through Thursday.<\/p>\n
WATCH CASSANDRA GARCIA’S COVERAGE BELOW:<\/p>\n
St. Lucie County King tides cause flooding along Florida’s east coast, close beach access points<\/p>\n
Driving along Ocean Drive on Hutchinson Island you’ll likely notice some flooded drainage ditches and swamped parking lots. These unusually high tides, known as king tides, typically occur this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fall, October, November, we see our tides that are higher than normal,\u201d said our meteorologist, Sami Squires. \u201cWe get this extra pull with the new moon and a full moon, which causes the king tides.\u201d<\/p>\n
Squires explained that when the sun, moon, and Earth align, the gravitational pull causes water levels to rise as much as one to three feet above average.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat could be flooding on people\u2019s docks, that could be water just coming up a little higher than normal, so boaters can see the impacts as well as people along the beaches,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Two public beach access points in St. Lucie County have been closed as a result: Walton Rocks Beach and Ocean Bay Beachside Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it is not impassable, but Walton Rocks\u2014there is about three-quarters of a mile entrance road in that is dirt, and so our concern is getting stuck,\u201d said Erick Gill, communications director for St. Lucie County.<\/p>\n
Officials say the issue isn\u2019t just the king tides. Recent heavy rains have added to the flooding concerns, particularly around marshy areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose beach accesses\u2014there\u2019s mosquito impoundment marshes that have culverts that connect into the Indian River Lagoon, and so those high tides are bringing that water up,\u201d Gill explained. \u201cAnd with the wind and the rain we\u2019ve had, a lot of that water is now going into the parking area and entrance roads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Squires also noted that the rainfall is intensifying the effects of the already high water.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe flood advisory is due strictly to the king tides, but when we get this heavy rainfall that comes down on top of [what] you already are seeing\u2014water that\u2019s inundating our coastline\u2014sometimes that could be hard to drain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service\u2019s coastal flood advisory will remain in effect through Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 King tides are making waves along Florida\u2019s east coast. The unusually high tides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2927,4089,4090,171,173,172,4091],"class_list":{"0":"post-3495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-flooding","9":"tag-king-tides","10":"tag-ocean-bay-beachside-park","11":"tag-port-st-lucie","12":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","13":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","14":"tag-walton-rocks-beach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}