How long can you tread water?

Well, after a scorching August with two consecutive record-breaking days (101 and 102 degrees), the lawn turning brown, and the shrubs in a perpetual state of wilt, I think the rainfall deficit here has been made up, in spades. Or more appropriately, in buckets. Huge buckets, courtesy of Tropical Storm Ernesto.

My first big mistake was not taking the hint when I pulled out of my driveway to find water ponding across the width of my street, which I've never seen happen before. No, I had an 8:45 appointment at my doctor's office in Norfolk, so I forged ahead. But by the time I pulled out onto Indian Lakes Blvd (a matter of three blocks), I had hurriedly made A Change of Plans. No way was I going to Norfolk in that deluge, given the way Norfolk flash-floods in the area I would have been heading for.

That's when I made my second big mistake: I turned onto Ferrell Parkway to go to work instead. A lot of water on the road, but the traffic crawled along at 30 mph (the speed limit is 50-55) so it still seemed to be manageable. Once on Lynnhaven Parkway, though, the situation deteriorated rapidly. By the time I started seeing big pickups and SUVs hesitating to continue, I was about halfway between home and work -- and from the looks of the wakes being thrown out in the other lane, it appeared that turning around and going back was not an option. So, seeing several vehicles turn off into an apartment complex rather than proceed into what looked like dangerously deep water, I followed suit.

Third big mistake.

I was hoping to be able to drive through the complex and back out onto Lynnhaven beyond the deep water. No such luck; this complex was a bunch of dead ends with no outlets other than the one I came in. Back near the entrance, I parked illegally in someone's reserved parking space to assess the situation, and to call 1) the doctor's office to cancel, and 2) the office manager at my office to let her know I'd be, at the least, late.

Ultimately, by the time I got my courage up to try heading out onto Lynnhaven Parkway again, it was too late; the water was more than knee-deep. More and more vehicles were either making a U-turn (which as far as I could see was the worse alternative) or taking refuge in the increasingly crowded parking lots of the same apartment complex where I had stranded myself. Considering that a lot of those vehicles were SUVs, I decided the most prudent course to take with my poor little PT Cruiser was to retreat to the parking lot. (It might be significant that in all the time I watched passing traffic, I never saw a single PT Cruiser go by.) Once the parking lots were full people started parking on lawns and the grassy island in the center of a loop side street. "Island" was definitely an appropriate term, as you can see in these photos I took after eventually moving there myself.


In the end, someone from my company (the CEO, actually) came out in his pickup to rescue me. Even he couldn't make it as far as this street; he called my cell phone and said he was two streets away and could I walk over that far? So I took my tote bag, put on my already soaked rain jacket, and slogged through that parking lot you can see in the pictures (over knee-deep) out to the sidewalk and down to where he was parked. He said he'd never seen Lynnhaven Parkway flood that bad in 25 years.

Finally safe at the office, I thanked my lucky stars that I've been keeping a pair of long pants in my office (they're intended to keep me from getting frostbite on those days when the air conditioning proves too much for my shorts) so I had something dry to change into. I wrung out my socks in the rest room and went barefoot, and draped my soaked jacket and shorts over a chair in my office and aimed the space heater at them on "High". Then I actually got some work done. Thankfully it finally stopped raining in the early afternoon and I got a ride home from another employee. We made an attempt to get my car, but that stretch of road was still closed.

By 6:30 pm I had called the city police and learned that that stretch of Lynnhaven was finally open in one direction, though they couldn't tell me which way. Nevertheless, I asked my next-door neighbor if he could take me down to try to retrieve my car. Success! The eastbound lanes were open and the waters had receded from the parking lots so I could get to my car without going wading. Westbound was still under water so I had to go east and make a big loop back to get home, but at least I got my car out of there before someone decided to call in the tow trucks to clear out abandoned vehicles.

So, how was your Friday?