Happened again today, up and down the MD/DC/VA area......heavy flooding rains from a complex frontal system. And.............sure enough................more water-rescues from trapped vehicles by the police and fire-departments. I was out myself in it for awhile, but was careful where and how I drove.

And usually, it's the same nonsense......people simply will not keep their vehicles off of flooded roads, and ignore warnings. They inevitably try and get across high water, misjudge its depth and/or current, and get themselves in trouble.

 

I bumped up an old thread to post another classic example of something that officials have been telling us for years...and people still refuse to listen. Here's a guy who thought he could do it because he was in a classic high-stance SUV (Looks like a Land Rover, but I'm not sure)...and it swallowed him up up like a cork. He just managed to crawl out of the rear hatch after someone else pried the drivers' door open....that person who jumped in to help obviously took a major chance, too, but showed a lot of bravery and courage doing so.

This happened just a few days ago, in North Carolina. A series of heavy rainstorms has gone through the Eastern U.S. in the last few weeks, and ground everywhere is saturated.


https://www.accuweather.com/en/video..._jveypshc7-5-w

 

I don't understand why they don't build a 3-foot-high guardrail on the downstream side of roads prone to flooding. Yeah, the car is going to have water damage but it's not going anywhere.

I was driving my dad's late-model Cadillac back in 2002 through the Texas backcountry towards Del Rio when the area was hit by thunderstorms. Just outside of a little town on the two-lane road we faced a broad stream crossing the road. A pickup made it through, it looked about a foot deep. So in we went.

Halfway through I could feel the car starting to "bob" sideways, and water began entering the rear door sill. Made it out a few seconds later, but the experience scared the cr@p out of me and I didn't settle down for hours.

The problem is you just can't tell how deep is too deep.

 

I think you've nailed the reason why they tell you to turn around, and not risk it.

 

Yes, the Texas Hill Country is full of dry (or near-dry) stream beds like that (I've been there, and seen some of them). The ground gets baked pretty hard in the dry summer heat, and when you get one of those afternoon thunderstorms, it doesn't get absorbed, and runs off in those channels very quickly, and you can get a flash-flood.