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A combination of high tide and intense rainfall late Wednesday morning left portions of Marco Island under as much as three feet of flood waters and more than 1,200 residents without electricity until early evening.

With the coming of low tide and the help of city officials, the city was back up and running about six hours after one of Marco Island’s fastest floods in recent years.

“I think it shows that all the city’s departments – public works, police and fire worked very well together,” said Lt. Dave Baer of the Marco Island Police Department. “Everyone started the day out as a normal day and it ended up becoming a pretty significant community event.”

A few areas of the island appeared to receive as much as eight inches of rain Wednesday, according to Naples Daily News Weatherman Jim Syoen. An average of four to six inches was generally reported.

“Every day for the last week there has been a slow steady rain just completely saturating the ground to all levels,” said Syoen.

Mike Daniel, a city construction manager, said the skies produced more rain in a shorter period of time Wednesday afternoon than during Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

“I think this one was faster,” he said.

Fire Chief Mike Murphy said there was “no forewarning” to the floods, which he said resembled a hurricane surge. The flooding left portions of several roads closed, including the Jolley Bridge and Collier Boulevard. The island’s major artery was closed to oncoming traffic for several hours Wednesday afternoon.

The areas which were least effected by flooding were in the southern portion of the island, where Collier Boulevard was just recently raised and larger drain pipes installed during reconstruction, explained Murphy.

The northern, older portion where Collier Boulevard is lower and the drain pipes more narrow, suffered the worst flooding, including the stretch between Elkcam and Barfield, which reopened after 7 p.m.

Baer said there was really no choice but to close the bridge to oncoming traffic because with roads flooded on island, there was no place for cars to go once they arrived.

Many residents were unable to leave their homes for several hours due to flooded yards as well as roads.

“You couldn’t see grass anywhere,” said Don Westcott.

Westcott resides in one of several apartments on Sixth Avenue where the flooding entered the interior of the structures.

“Pickup trucks were driving up and down the street making waves come in and wash into the house, for fun. I couldn’t believe it,” he said as he stood outside his duplex watching water rush from his backyard to a drain in the front yard.

While traffic wasn’t helping Westcott’s situation, he said utilities officials were very helpful.

“They were on top of it. They came out as soon as they could. They freed up the drain and it was like a whirlpool. All the water drained out in about five minutes,” he said.

Westcott helped another resident in the same duplex by vacuuming out gallons of water while the neighbor was out of town.

Even after the cleanup, a water line about two to three inches up on the baseboard remained evidence of his experience.

Sharon Hauk, a resident near Tigertail Beach, said her neighborhood was “totally flooded, about three feet under water.”

Children were playing “about waste deep” and could kayak down the road, she said.

Bald Eagle Towing employee Shawn Jandro said jet skis passed by him while he was working on Bald Eagle Drive.

There was nothing quite like seeing the “Marco Island parasail guys coming by on their wave runners,” he said.

Bald Eagle Towing towed 35 to 40 vehicles due to mechanical failure from flooding, said owner Bud Gruber.

That doesn’t include one of his own tow trucks, which Gruber helped pull out of a ditch.

Gruber didn’t have an exact total at the end of the day, put pointed to a Dodge Caravan, one of several cars which had a blown motor due to getting water in the intake.

“A lot of people went off into the ditches and left their cars running so they sucked up the water, but most were just driving down the road too fast. People don’t realize they’re not driving boats,” he said.

Reports of the deepest extent of flooding ranged from two to three feet.

Murphy said high tide in combination with intense rain were the primary causes of the flooding.

“At about 11 a.m. the rainfall became intense. High tide was 3.4 feet and peaked between 11:30 a.m. and 12 p.m.,” he explained.

The combination left the water no where to go with a storm water drainage system that drains into the gulf, he added.

Syoen said the average rain for the first half of the month of July is usually four inches, so with the island exceeding that precipitation in one day, there was just no place for the water to go.

As low tide approached, the lowest being 7 p.m., the island received some much needed relief.

While more than 1,200 homes were without power as of 12:35 p.m., most were restored by 1:30 p.m., said Karen Ryan, spokeswoman for the Lee County Electric Cooperative. All remaining “isolated outages” were restored by 6 p.m., she added.

While most of City Hall was still operating as usual throughout the flooding, some city employees went home early to avoid getting stuck on the wrong side of the bridge. Others, such as early shift employees of the Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort stayed a few hours late as their relief employees suffered delays going the longer route over the Goodland Bridge or waiting for the Jolley Bridge to reopen.