Margate City firefighters rescue over 50 after Hurricane Erin tidal flooding

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

Margate firefighters rescued more than 50 people from cars, restaurants and bars after tidal flooding Thursday night that was caused by Hurricane Erin, which remains hundreds of miles out to sea.

Several restaurants, including Sofia, were flooded along Amherst Avenue in Margate.

Officials said at least 30 people were rescued from that one location during dinner Thursday night.

Margate firefighters posted photos of them helping people storm and high water vehicles.

Officials said they also rescued 16 people and three dogs from flooded vehicles.

On top of that, they had to deal with a gas leak, an underground transformer fire and an electrical fire.

People, like Ocean City resident Mario Canal, were caught off guard by the rising water during dinner in Margate.

“If we expecting it, we wouldn’t be out to dinner,” Canal said.

He just happened to be making his way through the flooded street during a live report on Action News and remained in good spirits after he says he grabbed his friend’s gulf clubs from the car when his vehicle turned off in flood waters.

“I was mostly scared for the bottom of my feet, trying to work through all the debris in the road. There’s a lot of debris in the road,” Canal said. “I didn’t see any rescues. Really, people were trying to rescue their cars. The water is pretty deep in certain spots. Certain spots are real bad, certain spots aren’t so bad but it’s hard to get out of town.”

Officials have been prepared for this all week and continue to put the word out about the risk of moderate flooding.

They expect it to happen all over again during the next high tide Friday morning and later that night.