Parents erupt as Florida students seen battling rising floods after exiting bus into waist-deep water amid ‘one in 1000-year’ rainfall

Parents were left horrified after their children were forced off school buses and made to struggle through waist-deep floodwater as historic storms wreak havoc across Florida. 

Shocking footage from Port St Lucie showed young students battling the rising waters as torrential rainfall, described as a ‘one-in-1,000-year’ event, submerged roads and left school buses partially underwater. 

One clip captured a 17-year-old girl stepping off her school bus and trudging through the floodwaters toward her driveway as lightning flashed and thunder rumbled overhead.

Her parents described it as the worst flooding they had seen in years, according to AccuWeather.

In another video, a young boy was seen wading across a flooded street before reaching an even deeper stretch beside a truck floating in the road, with the water rising above his chest.

But the terrifying scenes were just part of a wider ordeal for families, with some parents saying their children were left stranded in stationary vehicles for hours and did not make it home until as late as 9pm. 

Others said they became stranded themselves while desperately trying to reach their children.

‘Roads became impassable. Cars were stranded. School buses were navigating flooded streets,’ one parent wrote on Facebook.

‘Parents struggled to reach schools. Teachers and staff were stranded. Residents were helping school buses through floodwaters,’ they added. ‘News footage showed a child nearly swimming through floodwater after getting off a school bus.’

Another anonymous parent wrote in a community forum: ‘This morning, I watched kids with knee high water getting into buses, parents whose cars were left inoperable on several corners of bus stops.’

‘Parents who were able to take their kids to school and could not make it past a point due to flooding,’ they added. 

‘The school board, superintendent and school administrators thought it was ok for kids to get to and from school in these weather conditions? Seriously??’

Facing mounting backlash from furious parents over the decision to keep schools open, St Lucie County Schools Superintendent Dr Jon Prince issued a public apology on Monday.

‘When the day started, I can tell you, when I kissed my wife, who’s a teacher, goodbye and sent my daughter, who’s one of our public school students, to school, I would have never anticipated that I would have to go pick up my daughter and get her home because her car was stranded,’ Prince said.

‘We didn’t anticipate anything like what transpired,’ he added. ‘Yesterday caused a lot of stress for our families, and for that, I’m profoundly sorry.’

What should have been a routine school day instead descended into chaos as record-breaking rainfall battered the Sunshine State, with conditions described as ‘extremely dangerous and life-threatening.’

Two people, 34-year-old Joshua Bennett and 78-year-old Archie Richards, were killed during the storm, one of them in a vehicle, according to ABC News. Hundreds of others across the state had also been rescued.

But in Port St Lucie, about 50 miles north of West Palm Beach, school doors remained open, despite hundreds of warnings urging officials to keep students home.

‘I am absolutely FUMING, and I think people need to understand what actually happened here because this did not begin after the flooding. It began BEFORE,’ mother Sandy Hernando wrote on Facebook. 

‘We knew what was coming. Flood watches and warnings were being issued. The ground was already saturated. Parents were posting about dangerous conditions and begging the district not to open schools Monday morning,’ she added.

‘Parents were telling them, over and over, that putting school buses, teachers, staff, teenage drivers and thousands of children on those roads was dangerous.’

One anonymous user claiming to be a teacher said staff had also urged the district to cancel classes, but their pleas were ignored. 

‘We asked for school to be cancelled. The district said NO. It is INSANE the amount of danger that the students, staff and parents were put in today,’ they wrote.

‘There are teachers and children still stuck at school because the cars are floating away. Parents are stranded. Trying to get hundreds of kids home with an hour notice was outrageous.’

Officials ordered an early dismissal just hours later, sending school buses into the very floodwaters parents had warned about while families were left scrambling to reach their children.

‘They just announced it, they just called parents right now to pick up kids from school. They let the kids go to school knowing it was like this,’ one woman told WPTV News.

More than 15 inches of rain fell across parts of Florida, with some areas recording over 20 inches as the state smashed its single-day rainfall record on Monday. 

Superintendent Prince offered parents his ‘humblest apologies’ and announced that schools would remain closed until at least Thursday, when officials would evaluate damage and assess whether it was safe for students to return. 

‘I want to express my humblest of apologies to the families that were impacted yesterday with the event that was completely unexpected,’ Prince said at a news conference. 

‘In addition to that, I want to apologize also to our employees but I also want to thank our employees. We had bus drivers come in early, get out to their routes, get students home as quickly as we could,’ he added.

‘It’s a very difficult challenge with regards to, you know, moving so many students home and I know created a ton of stress for our families so I completely understand.’