Water, water, everywhere

Well, I spoke too soon about the rain being harmless. All that I needed to see was the reports of flooding on the news Wednesday night to realize that rain is not always harmless. Today what I saw on the news became a reality for me on a very personal level. Heavy rains transformed my commute home into an hour long stress filled adventure.

On and off during the afternoon I had watched the rain fall and knew that the ride home was going to be awful. Rain doesn't bring out the best in people when it comes to driving skills and I knew what was ahead of me. It would be slow going all of the way home. I briefly pondered the idea of waiting it out at work, but I knew that I couldn't endure being there for much longer.

At first it seemed like it wouldn't be that bad, then I saw the first of many water filled streets on my normal route. I turned around at the edge of the water and started heading south looking for the next major road going west. My next option was being closed off by police as I arrived, so I kept heading south under the pounding rain. My third and final familiar option to me was open and I took it. I didn't want to make my situation any worse by getting lost and maybe stranded in a strange part of town.

I soon found out that this third option wasn't that promising either. Water was filling the street and the cars were leaving wakes behind them as they struggled to move forward. Seeing the street around your car become a river may seem exciting, but its not something that I need to experience. I lost a car to the flood last year and I would like to keep this one longer than a year.

The people who would slow down to a crawl when they entered the water pissed me off more than I can say. Yes, I can understand their apprehension about what might lie in the water, but in my mind it made more sense to keep moving. The longer that you linger in the water the worse it will be for the car.

I didn't want to get stalled because of someone else. If I did it to myself, I could have accepted it, but I did not want to become a victim due to someone else making a poor decision. In my determination or stubbornness to keep moving, I passed more than one stranded vehicle on my trip home. I simply ignored the fact that they didn't make it and just kept on going. Not once did I loose control of my vehicle.

Panic and anger were taking their toll on me toward the end. All that I wanted to do was get home where it would be warm and dry. I was getting tired of searching for roads on higher ground that were heading in the right direction. I kept debating whether or not to just pull over and wait whenever I found some high ground free of water. Then I would think to myself that I was so close to being home and that I could make it.

When I finally made it to my house, it felt so good to be inside where it was dry and warm. After watching the news, I decided to wait it out at my place for a while before I went over to Brenda's place. Traffic was a mess all over the city. Even after waiting for an hour, it still took about another hour to get from my place to Brenda's place. Then when I got there, I discovered that the power was out, which was not what I wanted after yet another hour long drive.

Looking out the window, I could see lights in other parts of the neighborhood so I went out for some food. I didn't see any reason to sit in the dark without food and it gave me something to do. After driving around for a while, I could tell that only about a four block area near the apartment was without power. This gave me hope that we might have the power back on fairly soon.

Shortly after my candle lit dinner of fast food, the power came on and everything was back to normal. I guess that I should be thankful, because my car and house is fine. Other people were far more inconvenienced than me by the heavy rains. I just had a bad ride. I didn't lose anything valuable besides time.