If you have read the first two parts of the Toddville welcome, you’re probably wondering where the third stooge has been hiding throughout this whole play. Two guys can’t move a one-bedroom apartment in a U-Haul and pick-up all in one trip; they finish their move as a tropical storm moves in despite having a whole week prior to the forecasted storm to move; they buy a house where the roads leading to it sit inches above the water and then they wonder if they are going to flood; and then coming home after a major storm, they can’t see the road is flooded and blindly plow right into it.
Summarizing the story like that, I reckon I would wonder where the third stooge in this play is at, too. But there’s something about tidal wetlands that, unless you live there, the picture in your mind of a flooded road is radically different than what actually happens.
At the point we hit the water, the backcountry road, even thought it is the main road, winds its way through the marshlands. There are no streetlights, no stop signs, and only on the real dangerous curves (the near 90°-turns) are there any road signs indicating which way the road goes. Ten of those fifteen miles of road are county-maintained. Once you leave the state-maintained roads, even those warning signs disappear. What’s left to guide you is the yellow center line, which is almost always a double yellow solid since there aren’t many stretches in the road where it’s safe to pass.
Now, the roads are wet because it is still raining outside. As the tide comes in, there is no rush of water spilling across the roads in muddy turbulence. The water simply rises, rather quickly, filling the drainage ditches alongside of the road, overflowing them, and spilling across the road to fill the marsh on the other side. The water is crystal clear because it is the Bay water, not muddy runoff from a hillside or raging stream. The yellow lines never disappear from sight.
That is why we didn’t see the water coming until we hit it.
We inched our way through the water, straddling the yellow line like a jet coming in for landing. All the warning stories ran through our head: “Don’t drive through water if you don’t know how deep it is”, “It only takes inches of running water to float your vehicle away”, and “If the water is rising, get out while you can.”
Turning around was simply out of the question. There is only one way to our house and this was it. We plugged forward. As long as I could see the yellow lines, I figured my truck would make it. And the water certainly wasn’t moving swiftly. The tide was simply coming in.
Less than a minute through the water and we were back on un-flooded pavement. I picked up my speed from a crawl to maybe around 20 mph. We figured other parts of the road must be flooded and we were intent on seeing the water before hitting it.
Whoosh! Less than a mile down the road, we hit water again, and, no, we didn’t see it. Emboldened by the first stretch of water, we inched our way through while straddling the yellow line for guidance.
We crept along, but this time, the water wasn’t disappearing. All the warnings flashed through our heads, again. We began to seriously doubt that we would make it home. We debated about turning around and waiting the flood out in Cambridge.
There was only one problem with that thought. The backcountry road is two-lanes wide with no shoulder to speak of. The pavement ends and a few inches of grassy mud separate the road from the drainage ditch with the marsh and drainage ditch boundaries being blurred. Making a turnaround in broad daylight on a dry road challenges one’s driving skills. I didn’t want to learn through experience that making a turnaround at nighttime on a flooded road is dang near impossible.
We continued forward – Keith holding his breath and every muscle in my body as tight as a funeral drum. What a relief when we hit un-flooded pavement, again. But it wasn’t a time to relax. We had about another ten or so miles to go.
We went a ways down the road when Keith said, “Slow down, looks like water up ahead.”
Sure enough, we hit the water, again, but without the whoosh! this time. We inched our way through the water like we were old pros at this. Keith even bragged that he could differentiate between the wet, un-flooded pavement and flooded pavement. Despite being able to see the yellow lines, the flooded pavement was a shade darker than the un-flooded parts.
I sure as Hell couldn’t tell the difference, not that it mattered this time.
We crawled through the water. Minutes ticked by and we were still in the water. The first mile clicked by and we were still in the water. Finally, dry pavement! It lasted three feet before we were in the water again.
That was the cycle for the next eight or so miles. Our truck became an amphibious vehicle that occasionally hit an un-flooded patch of pavement here and there. Our normal thirty-minute drive stretched to an hour, then an hour and a half. All the while, the tide continued to rise. The yellow line, while still visible, grew fainter. The water was getting deeper.
We passed Carolyn’s Stone House, our landmark meaning we were close to home. Driving through eight miles or so of floodwaters, I definitely needed a beer. My attention was so focused on following the yellow line and praying I wouldn’t lose sight of it, I missed the bar.
“Carolyn’s is closed,” Keith deadpanned.
“Too bad. I need a beer.”
“We’re almost home. You think our house is ok?”
“I guess we won’t know ‘til we get there.”
The yellow line grew fainter and fainter. As we neared the crab house, the lines disappeared. I could estimate where the road was, but one slight mistake and we’d end up in either the marshland or the marina. I stopped, not sure if I should chance continuing, but not really knowing what my alternatives were, either.
Up ahead, I saw another truck coming towards us.
“If he can make it through to there, I should be able to make it through this because we know it won’t get any deeper,” I reasoned.
“Are you sure?”
“Makes sense to me. Either that or the water is getting really deep down there and they’re leaving before they get trapped.”
“Oh God. I hope Thistle’s ok.”
“Worse comes to worse, she always has the second floor to run to. She’ll be safe there.”
We cautiously continued forward. No yellow line, but we weren’t in the marsh or the marina, either, so I figured we were still on the road. As we passed the crab house, the yellow line came back into view.
We both breathed a collective sigh of relief.
We had about two miles more to go to get to the road where we lived. We had long since stopped hitting dry patches of pavement, but at least the yellow line remained visible all the way to our road.
We turned onto our road and it was like entering a black tunnel. There are no yellow lines on our road, no signs, no reflectors, and no streetlights. As far as we could see, the road was a smooth black. Fortunately, no one cut the grass alongside of the road, so the blades poked through the blackness like tiny little buoys. As long as I stayed in the center of the black and kept the blades of grass equidistance on either side of me, I must be in the middle of the road.
Barely going faster than a turtle on a leisurely stroll, I moved through the water. The blades of grass made nice little buoys, but I knew there was one sharp turn in the road, and that cut over a drainage ditch. There would be no grass to mark the road.
As I approached the turn, the grass disappeared, but reappeared on the other side. I was able to judge where the center of the road most likely was and crept through the turn. The water got deeper, but I could still see the grass. As long as I could see the grass blades, I reckoned I would be ok.
We came to our marsh at the end of our property. The headlights revealed un-flooded pavement just past our marsh and where our woods began. For the first time in a solid six or seven miles, we hit un-flooded pavement. We passed our woods and, as our house came into sight, there were no floodwaters in sight.
We parked the truck and the first thing I did was go inside and crack open a beer. I needed one. And we both wanted to celebrate the weathering of our first storm and our house wasn’t even close to being in danger.
Coming next post…while we celebrate and unpack, the tidal waters have their own welcoming in mind.
© 2006
Mark Darien
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