#Video shows people trapped in elevator as floodwaters rise

A Nebraska man and two others nearly drowned Saturday night as neck-high floodwaters engulfed the elevator of his downtown Omaha apartment building, terrifying video shows.

Tony Luu and friends hopped on the lift around 10 p.m. to observe the damage wrought by ongoing hail and flash floods, he said — only to find themselves stuck in it on the ground floor as water rushed in from the lobby.

“Once it got to my stomach, we kind of figured, ‘OK, this is real,’” Luu told ABC News.

“It was like something out of a movie.”

Video recorded by Luu’s friend shows him vaping when the elevator jolts and water rushes in from below and the closed doors.

Later, when the floods have nearly submerged them, Luu’s friend — whose head is barely above the water line — appears to be on the phone with emergency services, telling them to hurry.

The pals managed to pry the door open before first responders got there, and escape along with the many gallons of water, ABC said.

By that point, Luu had been standing on the elevator’s railing to avoid going under, according to the report.

Luu’s friend Daylon Guy told the Omaha World-Herald that four others were stuck in another elevator in the same building. He said no one in either elevator required medical treatment.

“It was pretty traumatizing, but they seemed to be doing well,” he told the paper.

Omaha was hit by as much as five inches of rain in a brief window of time on Saturday, causing severe flash flooding across the region, the National Weather Service said.

The rain left a trail of destruction across the city, with floods as high as two-to-three feet on some roads, according to the World-Herald.

“The combined sewer system was overloaded,” said Steve Andersen, who runs sewer maintenance for the city of Omaha. “Some of our rain gauges showed up to 4 inches [of rain] falling an hour. We’re fortunate that the rain was short lived.”

Nearly 18,000 people lost power during the storm, the World-Herald said.

With Post wires