Lessons from Navigating Flooded Streets

Recently, as I was working in downtown Miami, a flash flood warning went into effect for a large part of South Florida. Upon seeing the alerts on my phone, I left and started heading toward my home area. The estimated time of arrival on my GPS kept extending as I approached the exit that I needed to take.

Upon reaching my usual exit, I detoured to an alternative route due to the closure of the main road. The water I drove through on this route kept getting deeper until it rose more than halfway up my car. At that point, I drove my car onto a curb, abandoned it, and rushed to the second floor of a nearby apartment building with a walkway.

Dr. Marcus BrightI sat on the doorstep of a random apartment to gather myself and update my wife on my whereabouts. I had never experienced such flooding before; it was something I had only witnessed on television. After sitting there for about an hour, I decided that I would walk home no matter how deep the water was, but first, I would give my car a chance to start and try to drive it home.

Somehow, even after being halfway submerged in water for a significant amount of time, the car started. The water on the floorboards was above my ankle as I pressed on the gas and navigated through the high water on the streets until I reached higher ground. At this point, the dashboard in the car had gone completely dark, and the windshield wipers did not work. I made it to the parking lot of a large store, parked, and walked home from there.

Upon reflection, there are three key lessons that have been reinforced as a result of this experience. They are as follows:

1. Don’t ignore your intuition

My intuition earlier in the day was telling me to leave my car in an elevated parking garage downtown and take a mass transit train system in South Florida called the Tri-Rail to a location near my wife’s place of employment, closer to where we live. I overrode my initial intuition and decided to drive anyway.