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the sidewalk (beneath the grass), the curb, the edge of the bottom of my car
this was about 9:30 a.m. last sunday. i woke up to my neighbors banging on my door. by the time i woke up they were gone (justifiably so, it was pouring) and my phone was ringing. it was them. they were calling to tell me my car was about to flood. i was disoriented to say the least. then i looked, really looked, outside and saw *why* they had been banging on my door (they’re even later sunday a.m. sleepers than i am.) after having had my car flood *twice* since i’ve lived here (once unavoidably and once because of not knowing where *not* to park) and consequently removing the entire interior upholstery, cleaning it, and reinstalling it myself, i was outside and in the car in about 2 minutes. in my pj’s. yep. and, having found one of the only remaining accessible spots of partially-higher ground, i notice, as i’m looking up and down the street, several of my neighbors doing exactly the same thing. see, the flash flood warning was issued at 9:30. a.m. no, i’m not kidding. but more importantly, living here re-orients your relationship with time, with your car, and with where you park it.
with time because, depending on where you are and how fast and hard it rains, you’ve got sometimes maybe only 20-30 minutes to avoid the bottom of your car becoming a kiddie pool. with your car because, depending on much you love your car, how old it is, how many times it may have flooded before, and how lazy you are, you start to make trade-offs. for example, i installed a new carpet liner the second (and last!) time it flooded and between the drying of the carpet, the removal of the seats, the console, the gearshift, etc., that is *not* something i plan on doing again. so the practical upshot of this is that i am willing to park far, FAR away, walk miles in the rain, or just not to drive at all, if that’s what it comes to. which is one of the reasons you have a new relationship with where you park, the other being that if you’re “new” here, you often find out the hard way where not to park.
but, the flipside of all that is a real communal, we’re-all-in-this-together kind of support-system. you develop informal networks, sharing where and where not to park. and when it happens people stream (?) out of buildings, all at the same time, all trying to avoid the same fate. and, unfortunately, all competing for the same thing. higher ground. when you get really good at this you learn what parts of the city to just stay put in if there’s a particularly bad storm. or to avoid completely if you can help it. which reminds me, i live in the highest part of the city–i’m a whopping 16 ft. above sea-level, so i’m lucky. this level of flooding has only happened 3 times on my street.
as you can see, i had about an inch to go. my neighbors are great, and their going all out to make sure my car didn’t flood is just one of the reasons.
this last one i took from a wall that i climbed up on. most of the vaults are of the falling-apart brick variety and have ferns and various plants growing out of the cracks and holes, which i found a little creepy.
this, obviously, was in someone’s yard. i wonder what happens when it rains?
