Lehman Causeway is partially reopened after sewage spill

The William Lehman Causeway in northeast Miami-Dade was reopened eastbound in the middle of Friday afternoon’s rush hour after being shut down from a sewage-pipe break since Thursday night.

Aventura police closed the east-west causeway around 10 p.m. Thursday, and at one point, police from Sunny Isles Beach warned the public to prepare for a closure lasting days.

But at 6:20 p.m. Friday, Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department announced all eastbound lanes had been reopened. Aventura police said southbound West Country Club Drive in front of the department would remain closed until further notice. The causeway’s westbound lanes were expected to be reopened Saturday afternoon, once the repair on the ruptured sewage pipe below the bridge is finished, said water and sewer agency spokeswoman Jennifer Messemer-Skold.

Crews were working to repair the break in the 24-inch-wide pipe, which was installed in 1979. The pipe is 12 feet underground and underneath the water table in the area, making repairs challenging.

Aventura officers got a call late Thursday that a vehicle hit a pothole on the causeway. But it turned out to be more serious.

“The integrity of the road was actually collapsing,” Aventura police Officer Hans Maestre told reporters at the scene.

Sunny Isles Beach announced after 2 p.m. Friday that the causeway could be closed “for several days” because of the need for repairs “more extensive than previously thought.” That grim forecast was replaced two hours later with news from Water and Sewer that the full closure would end Friday night. That then was moved up with the surprise announcement of the eastbound lanes reopening.

The three lanes still narrrow to a pair of lanes around the repair site before returning to three lanes, Messemer-Skold said.

County workers were able to stop the sewage flow out of the breach by 1:15 a.m. Friday, she said. There is no estimate on how much sewage was discharged.

A precautionary boilwater order for residents of Hidden Bay, 3370 NE 190th St., will be in effect until emergency work is completed, according to Aventura.

The cause of the break was unknown, but age and deterioration are suspects, Messemer-Skold said.

The causeway connects U.S. 1 just south of the Aventura Mall to A1A in Sunny Isles Beach.

Drivers were asked to take Hallandale Beach Boulevard to the north and the Sunny Isles causeway at 163rd Street to the south.

Two teens found shot to death in a South MiamiDade County field were students at Miami Southridge Senior High School,

Health officials confirmed the fourth and fifth locally acquired cases of dengue fever in Florida — with all five originating in Miami-Dade or Broward counties.

Miami-Dade County is under a “mosquito-borne illness alert” after the Florida Department of Health announced on Friday the county’s fourth local transmission of the disease. Miami-Dade is the only Florida county under such an alert, according to the most recent data from the health department.

The designation was announced Aug. 23 after the confirmation of Dade’s third locally transmitted dengue case.

Also on Friday, health officials announced the first case of 2019 to come outside Miami-Dade, in neighboring Broward County.

Local officials in Broward on Friday warned of a “heightened concern about additional residents becoming school sources said Friday.

Miami-Dade police identified the victims as 18year-old twin brothers Michael and Miking Adams. They were seniors at the school, 19355 SW 114th Ave., the school sources said.

The county medical ill.”

The cases do not appear to be related, health officials said.

Dengue fever can be contracted from the bite of an Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads chikungunya virus and

Zika virus, according to health officials.

While most people infected with dengue have mild or no symptoms, those who do exhibit symptoms can expect to feel them after about a week, according to the Department of Health.

Common symptoms include headache; eye pain; muscle, joint, or bone pain; rash; nausea and vomiting; and unusual bleeding or bruising. Severe cases of the disease can lead to shock, internal bleeding, or death.

Those who feel one or more of these symptoms should seek medical attention, health officials advise.

Broward’s health department and mosquito-control division will continue surveillance and prevention efforts, the Florida Department of Health said. examiner has not ruled on a cause of death, said Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a Miami-Dade police spokesman.

“Still a death investigation,” he said in an email Friday afternoon.

The teens’ bodies were found in a field on Southwest Health officials in MiamiDade advise the public to prevent mosquito breeding by draining standing water and covering skin with clothing or repellent.

Dengue fever is the most prevalent mosquito-borne ailment in Florida this year, with 154 travel-related cases and five local cases, according to state health department data.

Of those cases, 93 came from visitors to Cuba. Eighty-seven of the total cases were reported in Miami-Dade.

There have been no local cases of chikungunya virus or Zika virus in 2019, but a total of 38 travel-related cases. Zika virus accounted for 33 of the cases, and chikungunya for five.

The primary countries where Zika transmissions occurred were Haiti (9), Cuba (6), and Guatemala (5). Chikungunya transmissions were detected in visitors to Brazil, Haiti, India, and Thailand.

To combat the rise of mosquito-borne transmissions, a British biotech company is seeking an experimental-use permit to 115th Avenue in Goulds around 11 a.m. Thursday. They each had multiple gunshot wounds, police said.

The field is around the block from where the teens lived on Southwest 225th Street.

Friday afternoon, about a dozen friends and family members gathered at tables in the yard and driveway outside the home. They declined to comment. release genetically modified mosquitoes to kill the Aedes aegypti species in the Florida Keys.

PRECAUTION TIPS

“Drain and cover,” the

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health department says.

It’s going to keep raining — it’s South Florida and summer — so drain water from garbage cans and lids, gutters, planters, and flower pots. This will give mosquitoes fewer places to breed.

Get rid of old tires,

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drums, bottles, and broken appliances that might be in yards.

Don’t overlook boats

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on trailers. They gather water. Also splash the water off pool covers so there are fewer tempting puddles of water.

Cover up. Wear long

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sleeves, shoes and socks, and pants when outdoors. We know it’s hot.

Spray it on. Use repellents

● with DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus (except on children 3 and younger; check precautions first), para-menthane-diol, and IR3535.

For more information, visit the health department website. Martin Vassolo: 305-376-2071, martindvassolo