March 27, 2005, My Whole Life Fell Apart

A flood in the Rio Grande Valley swept through our lives, and nothing has been the same.

On March 27, a once-in-a-year rainfall hit the Rio Grande Valley and caused widespread flooding. Our home was flooded. Three days later, I posted my thoughts on Facebook.

March 30th - The Hotel - San Juan, Texas

I am trying to process and deal with the trauma that is the result of our escape from our home on Thursday night. In many ways, we have been downplaying just how close we came to dying on the road. Maybe it was to cope in the immediate aftermath, but as we put more distance between our present and that night, we are acknowledging the truth.

The night we evacuated, we made choices based on the limited information we had and did our best to escape what we knew was a potentially deadly situation when the water started seeping into the house. We thought we were ahead of the evacuation and could make two trips to get everyone out. We were wrong. We had NO IDEA at all that we were already surrounded by water in every direction. The map app didn't have any road closures on it as we followed our GPS directions toward our waiting hotel.

We left the house in the dark with the rain reducing our visibility drastically. The first time we hit water, we went into shock at how swiftly the car was engulfed. Hearing the engine sputter and die as the water was suddenly up to our windows left me in a weird state of fear and numbness. We were saved by two people in a truck who pushed the car out of the water. My husband helped them, water rushing in when he opened the door. It scared me, but I also trusted him to do the right thing. It took just a few minutes to push the car onto the higher road. I thought the worst was behind us. I also realized we would not be able to retrieve Kody, who had stayed at the house to care for the remaining cats.

When the car started, we thought the worst was behind us. We were determined to get my mother, who is in her mid-80's and the cats with us to safety.

We tried going in one direction, but the water was high and there were a few cars stranded. Trucks were making their way through the water, but we didn't dare try. So we turned around and headed in the opposite direction through the deluge. The rain was violently heavy, pelting the windshield. In the darkness, we saw car lights ahead, and cars passed by us. The visibility was bad, the headlights catching the rain and shimmering on the road.

Headlights ahead of us reassured us that we were on a clear road. We sped forward, and suddenly the car was swept up in high water. We'd been fooled by an illusion. The headlights we saw "approaching us" were several cars, a pickup, and a construction truck far ahead of us.

"I gotta push the car," my husband said, getting out.

Water flooded in, and my cat Buffy started screaming in earnest. I jumped out, too. We were at a point where water in the car seemed inevitable. I was shocked when the water rose to my waist. I knew we were in dire danger. We had to move fast. The water was everywhere, and the road seemed to be gone. My husband pushed the car from behind, and I pushed on the driver’s side, one hand gripping the steering wheel to direct the car. My mom, in the passenger seat, helped me steer.

Water was rising around us, in front and behind. We aimed for the headlights ahead, assuming we were going to higher ground. The water was cold, thick with debris, and both helped and hindered us. It kept our car buoyant so we could push it, but it also tugged at us. The rain was hitting me so hard, it felt like small pebbles. My glasses were pelted by the rain, stealing my visibility. It was completely dark behind us and to the sides. We couldn't see where the road was beneath the waves. A few times, I bumped up against a hidden curb and turned the wheel.

We aimed for the headlights ahead of us, avoiding submerged and abandoned cars we hadn't been able to see in the dark before we were trapped. We pushed, shoved, and strained to keep a rapid pace. It was hard to do. I had worn platform sandals to keep my feet out of the water when we fled, and now they were working against me as the water tried to pull them off. I tripped a few times, righted myself, and kept going.

Debris floated toward me at one point, and I tried to push it away, but the current pushed it around my legs, tripping me. I almost fell. I gripped the door and tried to stay upright, terrified that I was going to get dragged under the car and crushed. I managed to push away and struggled to free myself. My husband gave me a frightened, panicked look as he passed me.

"I'm caught! Keep going! I'll catch up!"

In freeing myself, my sandal slipped to one side, nearly toppling me. I reached down into the water and found it wedged high up on my foot sideways. I straightened my shoe, gripped the front edge with my toes, and "ran through the water." My husband had moved to the driver's side to push and steer, and I took over shoving from behind. After a few minutes, we switched again, barely talking to each other.

One thing my husband and I are very good at is working as a team.

As we neared the headlights, I realized they were stranded cars, and my heart sank. We had thought they were safe, on higher ground. Instead, they were stuck. A woman sat in a white truck, crying, on her phone, screaming through her window at me not to hit her truck. We passed by so close, I had to turn sideways to get through. Another driver in a construction truck shouted at me in Spanish, looking confused and scared. I yelled back that I didn't understand him, and we passed him. In another car, I saw dark shapes and a phone, but couldn't clearly see the people inside.

My husband was so intent on saving us, doing the math of what to do if the worst happened, he didn't see the people trapped.

We aimed for more lights in the distance. The rain was unrelenting. I could barely see through my glasses. I could hear my husband shouting directions at me to steer in one direction, then another. Finally, we saw street lamps and traffic lights and realized we were near a restaurant.

My adrenaline was pumping, I didn't feel any pain in my body, but I did feel my strength starting to flag. The car got heavier as we pushed it up an incline, and the water reluctantly let us go. At the end, I barely had the power to keep going. I was freezing cold, and my legs felt like they were encased in cement. We rolled the car up toward an intersection, and I saw a sports car approaching. I waved at him to go back, but he gunned his engine and roared past us.

We finally rolled the car up to the intersection, free of the water. I don't remember my husband telling me to drive, but I got behind the wheel and he got in the back. Later, he would tell me he was on the verge of collapsing.

Shivering, I sat on the soaked driver's seat.

"Try to turn it on," my husband said.

I was positive the car would remain silent, but the engine came to life. I was shocked. I put the car in gear and edged forward, still not believing what had just happened and that we'd managed to get to safety.

I drove slowly onward, hoping the worst was behind us. Buffy was still screaming, my mom was thankfully very calm, and my husband was completely exhausted. Later, he told me how he had been trying to figure out how to release our cats so they could swim away and how he could carry my mom out of the water if we couldn't make it out of the flood waters. At the same time, he knew he didn't have the strength left in him to carry her. It was terrible math.

But we didn't have to face that scenario. Instead, we drove on past abandoned cars.

The car engine sputtered, struggled, but remained on. I swerved around enormous "lakes" of water on the road, ran stoplights and stop signs. When we reached the interstate, we held our breath as I gunned it through a large swath of water. We turned onto the frontage and rolled through water that pulled at our tires. Once we hit the on ramp, relief flooded me.

We only saw one sheriff vehicle, and at one point had to exit the interstate because what looked like an overturned emergency vehicle had brought escaping traffic to a standstill. Again, we had to risk driving through water, but the trucks ahead of me cut through it, providing a path. Up on the interstate again, the car struggled along. Lining the interstate and frontage were dozens of abandoned cars.

Finally, we saw our exit, and it looked clear. We drove along the frontage with others, and just as we neared our turn, water stretched across the road.

"What do I do?" I cried out. I had a horrible feeling we weren't going to be able to get through it.

Just then, a big pickup pulled up on the passenger side. He spoke to my mom in Spanish, and she said, "He's leading the car behind us through the water. Follow him, get close!"

I obeyed, keeping right behind the truck as it sliced through the water, big white waves flowing away from it and us. Our car and the one he'd been leading made it through, and he turned one way and we turned the other.

We had two more frightening moments with more water flooding intersections, and both times, I managed to scoot through behind other cars. The last body of water was right before the hotel. I gunned it, risking it. We made it through.

When we pulled up to the front of the hotel, I was in shock that we'd made it. It seemed impossible that we'd survived that dark, flooded country road and were in front of the hotel.

I got out, walked inside dripping wet, and said to the women at the check-in desk, "We almost didn't make it."