�y��vlog

Footage shows brown water rushing over rocks and past trees, as rescue workers in red boats drive by flooded homes.

Never-before-seen footage obtained by the BBC shows the difficult conditions they faced: jagged and potentially dangerous pieces of rubble and muddy, brown water, which often meant they could not see more than a foot or two ahead of them.

Thousands of residents are displaced after muddy brown water flooded their homes or cut them off from the outside world by wiping out roads or totaling their cars.

In Dover and Lithia, small communities about 20 miles inland from Tampa, rescue teams plunged into murky brown water to save seniors and families trapped in flooded homes as the Alafia River swelled.

The emptying of the reservoirs has released vast amounts of sediment that had accumulated behind the dams, sending pulses of turbid brown water into the river.