So I drove in a flash flood today...

At about 3:00 today, we hear some thunder, and then hear the rain on the roof. I work in a sheet-metal-roofed warehouse, it is deafening when it rains hard, and it was really coming down.

After about 30 minutes of unrelenting rain, a fellow employee runs up to me and says "You should probably move your car."

I poke my head out the door, and there's my car, with water up to bottom of the doors. Turns out I parked in the spot that's over the storm drain, and it clogged, causing the parking lot to turn into Lake Crapfest.

With a loud expletive, I fly out the door, and am up to my mid-calves in nasty water by the time I reach my car. Oh, and I'm soaked to the bone. After 6 seconds. I open the door, which thankfully was still about 1/4" above the water level, and quickly shut it. I put the key in the ignition and luckily it starts, and I put it in gear, and go.

It's weird the things you don't think about: I had no traction because my tires were essentially donut-shaped life preservers. It took about 10 seconds to reach dry ground even though it was like 20 feet away, because my wheels were hopping and bumping because they were trying to float.

Once I reached dry-ish ground, and since I was dripping wet already, I volunteered to go get the other two cars that were in danger, but less so than my car, a Yaris and an old Camry.

I know, you're not supposed to drive through deep water, but in this case, I didn't care. My car's life was on the line! Turns out it rained nearly 2 inches in our section of Harrisburg today. A town across the river got 2.75 inches in 45 minutes.

Any stories about saving your cars from Mother Nature?

That's SOP around here. When the entire city is 3 inches above sea level flooding is a regular occurrence. Hell spit out the window and the car behind you will probably drown out. I'm on the mount of Mount Pleasant. My house is 18 feet above sea level.

Glad you caught it in time. Flooded cars stink. Literally.

Wow, glad you saved it!!!

In reply to Toyman01:

Spent many years living Down Town Charleston and oh lord the flooding is rediculous. Remember seeing people canoe down Market Street during an average heavy spring rain. Recall having my foot to the floor in 1st gear going through a puddle and maybe seeing 1500-2000rpm on the tach because the "puddle" water was half way up the door on the car.

I drove through one in my old '74 Triumph Spitfire once. I swear I was bouncing along the water there so much rain. Stayed reasonably dry considering.

ArthurDent wrote: I drove through one in my old '74 Triumph Spitfire once. I swear I was bouncing along the water there so much rain. Stayed reasonably dry considering.

Impossible, the water had to come up thru the rust holes in the floorboard.

I drove through a flash flood about 2 weeks ago.

Actually my fiancee drove while i sat in the passenger seat for once.

Bad drainage on I-35 meant a minor lake, and combine that with the dick behind us being.. i dont even know how to say it...

Well anyway, now my Magnum is all fugged up and their insurance refuses to pay!!

Glad to you know your car is still useable and not down about $6k.

Otherwise, ive driven trough all sorts of crazy flash floods, South Texas is good for that..

Probably the craziest thing i ever did was speed up so that i could hydroplane my entire car across like 30 feet of water in a flooded low water crossing. I had paid $600 for the car and the crossing didnt seem the lethal type so i figured it was worth a shot. It DID work. Felt like hitting a wall, but i really did just skip across the top.. and drove off the other end.

The closest I've been to losing a car to the rain was with my old '95 Saab 900. I had the sunroof open while I was at work because the car didn't have A/C and it was 95deg with about 98% humidity. About four hours into work I got a peek outside and saw very dark clouds bearing down fast. I scrambled outside and closed my sunroof just as the sky opened up and went back into work looking like a drowned rat. A coworker, some wannabe gangsta with a ghetto-riced Civic, had left his sunroof open too. He didn't get to his car in time.

He still drove it for a year after, but he lost over $2000 worth of stereo equipment, had electrical problems out the wazoo, and the car REEKED.

Twin_Cam wrote: Any stories about saving your cars from Mother Nature?

Didn't save it, but that's what killed our 2.4 DOHC -swapped Neon: Flash flood between my wife and our kids at pickup time. She avoided the first flooded road but was trying an alternate route, taking it as carefully as motherhood would allow, when the bow wave from an oncoming 'Burban washed up over the front bumper. The intake kit I had on there was radically shortened and plenty high, but not enough to clear the wake, and this was before the cutouts were available. Snork, crunch, hello bent rods.

When I had the ep3 civic I used to read a forum called "ephatch.com" in which the question was always being asked about why the car didn't run anymore after fording that big puddle.

In my cut and paste reply I referred to the culprit as the "Tanabe or AEM Cold-Water Intake". Kids never got the joke...

Twin_Cam wrote: Any stories about saving your cars from Mother Nature?

Heh, though the story about the blocked storm sewer just reminded me of something else. At our first cohabitation apartment in St. Louis, the couple below were shall we say, frequent, enthusiastic, and long lasting lovemakers. They happened to have a Jetta I knew by site. During a typical midwest near-tornado gullywasher, I saw it parked at the curb with water lapping just over the door sills. I went down stairs to let them know they might want to reconsider their parking space in a big hurry and got treated to 5 minutes of porn sundtrack while I repeatedly rang the bell. Finally I got their attention and it was truly amusing to watch a pissed-off guy in hastily-applied undies wading out through the freezing downpour to rescue his car.

Our driveway is at a pretty high angle. We came home from a wedding in "da UP eh?" a couple years ago to find the Cobalt up to the top of the rear tires which basically means the top of the rear bumper to the middle of the rocker. No damage done.

We watched from the house about 25 years ago as our old Super Beetle was floated 50 feet downstream in a flash flood before it "fetched up" against the curb. Bone dry inside, started fine, no problem.

When I was stationed in Charleston, SC they came around. I rolled up to a quiet 4-way stop right behind a Vega, I had a Mercury Capri. The driver looked over the scene, you couldn't make out the intersection boundaries, curbs as they were under water. On the opposite side was a little kid standing about knee deep in water.

The driver looks at me in the rearview, I just shrugged and smiled. He decided to proceed. He moved slowly forward and by the time he got to the middle he was floating and then sank right up to the door handles.

The kid was standing on a fire hydrant!!!

Bwahahahahahaha..... I found another route.

Dan

porksboy wrote:

ArthurDent wrote: I drove through one in my old '74 Triumph Spitfire once. I swear I was bouncing along the water there so much rain. Stayed reasonably dry considering.

Impossible, the water had to come up thru the rust holes in the floorboard.

That is what happened in my mothers A-H 3K. She also said that if you got caught in the rain just keep driving it was dryer.

6 weeks ago i bought my son a 07 accord 33k miles, 3 weeks ago his girlfriend drove it into a flashflood, water over the seats, motor locks up and the car floods...........insurance guy did not even look at it.....total loss, paid me more that i paid for the car but as you know they will make it back in the long run.....i am shopping again for a late model accord around 12 grand if anybody has one????

Left my sunroof open over night in my new to me E36 M3 with only 43k miles at the time and it rained like crazy. If you know E36s you know that they have a cavern under the seats...bad idea if it gets wet because the water stays in there! I cried a little and then spent the whole weekend removing the interior and drying out the car.

Then this spring we had massive floods up here in MA. Once everything had settled a few days later I took my M3 out for a spin. I came across water flowing over the road and slowed down to a crawl to get through it...I was doing great and was almost across...then I saw a Dodge Duely coming the other way at about 50mph and didn't even have time to think when I got hit by (literally) a wave of water. It hit me so hard I couldn't figure what happened for a second. Once I regained thought I realized I had my window open. The wave hit so hard that it actually made it all the way to the back window through the front window!

Another fun two days cleaning out water! YAY! Why doesn't this S% happen in my beater Jeep?!

Years ago (late '80s or early '90s...I don't recall exactly) we were on a family vacation that included several days at the NSRA's "Street Rod Nationals" in Louisville KY. A big downpour came and flooded one or more of the parking lots (there were THOUSANDS of streetrods in attendance). Some of the "highboy" style hotrods and T-buckets with the big rear tires had their back halves floating. Someone local to us had his old paccard flood about midway up the doors.

It was a mess...

I watched a gal in an S10 try to ford about 4 feet of water in an intersection in front of my friend's house when we were probably 10. It floated for a few seconds while it slowly sank. I bet it didn't do the truck any favors ;).

Clem

I have two funny stories about flash floods/drowned cars (including one on an SCCA National Pro Rally inTexas), but those can wait. Everyone needs to be aware of the dangers.

I used to work search and rescue in southeastern New Mexico. One night we were called out for a vehicle stuck in a "dry wash" during a flash flood. The husband left his wife and three kids in the vehicle (a Jeep Cjherokee) and went for help. At this point the water was maybe a couple of feet deep.

Swiftly moving water is incredibly powerful, much moreso that most people realize. By the time we were called out, the Jeep was gone, along with the family, and the water was about 4 feet deep. The next day we finally found the Jeep about 2 miles downstream, flattened to about 18 inches total thickness. It took us most of the rest of the day to find the bodies. No one survived. I found one of the toddlers.

Driving through a real flash flood is really extremely dangerous. Be sure to take those warnings seriously. Body recoveries are not an enjoyable experience.

I understand the danger...this wasn't really swift-moving water, it was pretty still, only it was rising. And it wasn't technically a flash flood, it was the storm drain getting overwhelmed. Although I'm sure it was still dumb to run through a giant puddle when there's still lightning everywhere.

I motored through and area of road that was probably 200 feet long and 2'-3' deep in some spots in my '68 VW Fastback. I went around a blind curve entirely too fast, right after a hard rain, only to find a freakin' sea with a bunch of people stuck in their cars and trucks, which were half submerged. My legs were getting soaked because of all the water shooting through the floor. The nose of the car apparently creates enough of a wake that the engine doesn't totally get drowned out. It also helps that the intake louvers are all the way at the top of the rear fenders. I was going too fast to stop and turn around, so I just downshifted and put the accelerator to the floor. I made it all the way through, and the people in large trucks that were stuck in the middle of it were shocked, to say the least. The only way I knew where the road was was from the stop sign in the distance coming out of the water, and I knew the road was straight so I just drove towards it.

I've made it thru a few 1/2-1ft puddles on occasion, nothing I'd like to try again.

Back in june '06 when there was the flood in CNY, the night it rained I was at my GF's house, 1 town away from home and on the other side of the river. I drove home the next morning less than an hour before the bridges where closed, for 3 days. If I had clean clothes and more condoms, I would have stayed put.

Then in the fall that year when we had some minor flooding, we where safe and dry at my place and her parents threw a bitch-fit for her to get home, when the creek in the back yard was up to their door. Leave saftey, drive thru who-knows-what, to go to her house that is flooding. WTF

Wednesday night we had three or four inches of rain. A few blocks away, a street flooded and all the cars that were parked at the curb floated up onto the sidewalk. To add insult to injury, the next morning when all the residents came out of their houses, they discovered a traffic cop had come along and ticketed all the cars for being parked on the sidewalk.