Ashkelon submerged in severe flooding, heavy rain
Rising waters seep into emergency room at Brazilai Hospital; Ben Yehuda Street collapses under strain an inch of rain within an hour.
Even the most veteran doctors at Barzilai said they'd never seen such severe flooding which seeped into the hospital wards through the doors and windows.
Among the wards that were flooded were the emergency room, the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), an operations room, the cafeteria, the Department for Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Pediatric Department and the hospital's main halls.
The flooding was caused by some 118mm of rain that were measured in the city in the morning hours (7am-12pm), overwhelming drainage systems and putting stress on the streets, even causing the partial collapse of Ben Yehuda Street.
According to the Israel Meteorological Service, 92mm of rain fell in Ashkelon in one hour - a record amount for one hour. The previous record was set in October of 2008 in Haifa, where 88mm of rain fell in one hour.
Ashkelon noted another rainfall record when 67mm of rain were measured in half an hour.
The new floods and heavy rains came just days after the end of a long week of intense weather in Israel that made October one of the wettest in the country's history.
