On June 9, 2012 - we got more rain fall in inches than we have since the 1930's. It was even more of an odd situation as there was no tropical storm and no hurricane. A few years ago Pensacola, FL was hit by Hurricane Ivan, one of the worst Pensacola has seen, and even during that time the city didn't receive as much rainfall as we did yesterday.
Sean and our's day began with us playing our online video game, chatting with my brother, and having a relaxing rainy Saturday. We had a planned lunch date and around 11am started preparing to head out. We usually watch the news in the morning, but hadn't that day.
We headed out and noticed right from the start that the roads were semi-flooded and there were a few deep areas of water we had to carefully navigate through, but didn't think much of it. It's very common for us to receive a massive dump of rain over a period of about an hour in this area. Typically it does that and then it drains off in a couple hours. We continued on to lunch ..
We made it into Pensacola and on the way up to our restaurant destination, The Tucson Oven, we came across a low area of road that was unpassable. Cars and even trucks were turning around and going back the other way. We made the same wise decision and took a different route, via the freeway, to get to our location.
We briefly considered heading back home when we came across the inaccessible portion of road, but figured we were having an adventure and again, figured the rain would stop soon and things would drain off by the time we finished lunch.
We didn't encounter any other problems getting to The Tucson Oven and sat down for our lunch. As we ate we watched the rain continue to come down in torrents out the window and started to thinking briefly, hmmmmmmmm.... getting home, may just be a problem!
As we left the restaurant the skies cleared briefly and we figured we were home free. No worries. Well, that lasted for about 15 minutes and then the downpour started all over again.
During our 15 minutes of clearing we made it back to the beginnings of Gulf Breeze. We have to pass through Gulf Breeze Proper to get to 'Midway' the area we live in. As we drove through we went by 3 large storm drains that the Fire Department were working hard to keep clear. They had the roads blocked so that people had to travel closest to the center of the road to keep them as high as possible. The Fire Department had 2 men at each storm drain and they were up to their thighs in the water. They were using what looked like shovels or rakes to drag debris off the top of the drains to keep the water flowing in. I wish I had taken a picture because there were large whirlpools swirling into the drains and yet the water kept rising. I can imagine that the men clearing the drains were fighting quite a current to stay on their feet.
We made it past Proper and drove about 10 more miles to get close to where we live. The roads were decent with only a few more areas that we had to stay to the center of the road to avoid the deepest water. This being said, even in the center of the road there was 8"-12" of water we were slowly and carefully driving through!
Now, there are about 3 ways to access the street we live on. We turned down the first street about 6 blocks away from our home and quickly realized it wasn't an option. We ended up driving into about 12" of water and it was very quickly getting deeper. We chose to back up and try a different route.
We took one of the more main roads down to another access point. As we looked down that road we saw two young men, about in their twenties, walking ..... wading ........ swimming? .. down the street with water that was up to their waists. Well.... we quickly realized that wasn't going to be an option.
One final option, and one final view down another side street, and we quickly realized we wouldn't be getting back to our house, at least not in my car. The third route was also flooded and probably the most dangerous. There's a small creek that runs through the properties and it was pouring across the top of the road. We found out later that this road was barricaded as there was a concern that a car or truck would easily be swept sideways if it tried to drive through it.
We then also realized that the water was continuing to go up in inches, and getting back out to the main road was probably not an option. We were right next to a small Public Park that's on higher ground so we made the decision to pull into the parking lot and evaluate our situation.
I have to say at this point, that while the situation could be dangerous if in the wrong place, it was also kind of a humerous adventure for us. Concerning, but humerous. I give both Sean and I credit because instead of worrying and stressing. We were laughing, smiling, and saying to ourselves, WOW. If there'd been severe winds or it had been nighttime, I could see us having more concern at that moment, but really, we were kind of amused at our dilemna.
We were in our location at the park for about 5 minutes, deciding if we were going to wade / swim our way home, when an SUV that we'd also seen driving around pulled up next to us. We were very happy to discover that the SUV was actually one of the Fire Department's unmarked vehicles. He was out in our area blocking off / barricading roads and helping to rescue people where he could and he offered to get us home. Thank you Gulf Breeze Fire Department!!!!!
Our kind fireman drove us the long way around to the street we had first tried to go down. There was still some hesitation to getting us home as we had to drive through about 2 feet of water which was about the limit for his SUV. We drove slowly and watched to make sure the water didn't get any deeper around us and we made it!
I'm very happy to say that no water got into our home. It got close enough that we were concerned for a bit, but never made it all the way up. Sadly many people we know didn't fair so well. One of our acquantances in Pensacola has said that there's water about 8 inches above his electrical outlets - thankfully they have flood insurance. Another friend of ours was evacuated along with her neighbors from their area of Pensacola. She went home today and was very glad to find that water did not make it into her home. Thank goodness for the most part a lot of the homes are built up high enough from the roads to allow for a few feet of flood water.
Tomorrow we'll see our places of business faired. One of the pictures I posted below is of the Burger King that is literally a couple blocks away from my work place. Sean's place of business is on some of the lower roads of Downtown Pensacola so it may gotten some water inside.
Shortly after we made it home, the rain started to slow down. Several hours later we went and got my car back. We walked the short way, which meant wading through water that was knee deep (and adventure in itself!), but drove back the long way. The two roads we tried to get down last were still flooded (knee deep), but the road the Fire Dept took us down had gone down enough for us to drive on. I was happy to have my car back safe and sound at home.
Today it's continued to rain and it's supposed to continue to rain all week, but fortunately it hasn't been a straight downpour since yesterday afternoon, which has allowed most of the water to go down. We drove around a bit this evening and all of the roads were driveable in our area.
Here are a few pictures of the Pensacola area on June 9, 2012. I didn't take these myself, some are from 'weather.com' and one is a picture that one of my acquantances on Facebook took.
