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Man oh man, did we get hammered with rain yesterday!! All day it rained, sometimes light, some times heavy. Along in the late afternoon big storms came through. There were some tornado watches but none developed. Our county had one for a time. Bill was coming home from California last night. Plane was due in at 9:58 PM. OK, watch TV until 10, leave for the airport. Then he sent me a text message saying he would be a 1/2 hour late due to problems. OK, no biggie, watch TV until 10:30.
As I was watching our local station, one of the anchors was doing a live shot downtown. The water behind her on 7th St was deep, really deep. They were cautioning people to be wary of standing water, do not try to drive through it, you don't know how deep it is. Any vehicle will float or sink in high water. Being inside one during that time is a death trap. During the time she is doing her talk, a car drove up on the far side of the standing water, behind her. What did they do? DRIVE INTO THE STANDING WATER!!! No joke. She had just finished her shot. Then all of a sudden the camera's are rolling again and everyone is seeing a real honest to goodness live rescue. The people did not get out of the vehicle! It was a large SUV of some kind. The driver did stick his head out and ask a guy who had backed up if he could help, at least I think that's what he asked, you couldn't hear anything. But the other guy got a rope and it looked like he was going to pull him out. By this time the vehicle is going into the water. The people stayed in it!!!
Next thing ya know, a fire truck is there, the vehicle is in the water and only about 6 inches of it is above the water. Rescue workers had to swim out to the vehicle, take an ax and bust the window, pull the people out and get them out of the water!! It was absolutely unreal. It all happened within a 20 minute time span. Why they didn't get out is beyond me. Thankfully it was only two adults, but had a child been involved, all bets are off, I'd be draggin that kid out and hitting dry land.
And as things go, all was well. I drove out to the airport to pick up Bill. It was raining buckets for sure, at one time on the interstate I was down to 25 mph and ready to pull off for a few minutes until the rain let up. But then it was my exit so I took it and stayed in the Holiday Inn parking lot for about 20 minutes. Bills plane finally got in at 11:45 and we got home just fine.
More: Just an update on the amount of rain we got Thursday. Between 8:30 & 9:30 PM we got nearly 3 inches of rain here in Little Rock, which brought Thursday's total to nearly 5 inches. If Little Rock receives 2.54 inches of rain by Saturday and then normal amounts in November and December, the capitol city will record the wettest year since meterologist's began tracking accumulations in 1882.
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