thoughts, words, deeds

flood waters

Write about water rising, overflowing or flooding such as a creek, the River Seine or any other river, the ocean, a swimming pool, a bathtub, water in a glass...any water.

One of my recurring nightmares is about flash floods. I'm in a car--backseat with someone else driving--and the water is rising so fast that the road is becoming a river and we're floating down a hill that's becoming a waterfall and I'm waking up . . .

Needless to say, a disturbing thing.

I know where it comes from. I live in a town with an older storm sewer system that flash floods in torrential rain. Which happens at least once a year in our area. So, when the storms come, the streets flood, sometimes to the point that they're impassible. We generally try to be home when it happens, but we've been out sometimes.

One time, Dad had come home early from church because he had to go in to work (he could walk) and parked the car on the street so that Mama could back in the van when the rest of us came home. Massive rain happened, and when we got home, our house was in a small lake that came up to our walkway (the house was probably five feet above the street, the walkway only two) and the car was standing in water up to its windows. We waited an hour or so until the water went down, rented a shop vac, but the water had come up to the dashboard (the cupholders were full) and that was an automatic total. We'd only had the car for about two months at the time.

Another memorable day, we were going to lunch (Mama, Dad, and I) through the back roads because Mama likes them). We were on a street that was a straight line from the major we'd been on to the major we wanted, but there was standing water. People were stopping before it, and the brave were driving forward, with wakes of water breaking away from their tails. We made it through the first one no problem, but there was a car a little bigger than ours stalled out in the next intersection. We backed up and went to a different restaurant.

The water rises worst in the intersections and on the edges of the road, were the dips are. There's a road (the major just north of our house) that actually feels like waves as you drive along past each intersection as the road humps up and back down--it makes me sea sick, sometimes. And when it rains, that's a bad one. One day we were driving home along it and finally cut south so that another car wouldn't drown.