"It's worse than the hurricane"

My mother says. 

Because right now, The Weather Channel is reporting various stages of flood advisories and warnings:

Weather Alerts-Iona, FL

Flood Advisory

From Thu 2:11 pm until 5:15 pm EDT

1 of 2

Action Recommended

Avoid the subject event as per the instructions

Issued By

Tampa Bay/Ruskin - FL, US, National Weather Service

Affected Area

Lee County

Description

...FLOOD ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 515 PM EDT THIS AFTERNOON...

WHAT...Urban and small stream flooding caused by excessive rainfall is expected.

WHERE...A portion of southwest Florida, including the following county, Lee.

WHEN...Until 515 PM EDT.

IMPACTS...Minor flooding in low-lying and poor drainage areas. Water over roadways. Ponding of water in urban or other areas is occurring or is imminent.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 211 PM EDT, Doppler radar indicated heavy rain due to thunderstorms. This will cause urban and small stream flooding. Between 2 and 4 inches of rain have fallen. - Additional rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches are expected over the area. This additional rain will result in minor flooding. - Some locations that will experience flooding include... Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Lehigh Acres, Southwest Florida Airport, Three Oaks, San Carlos Park, Villas, Pine Manor, Buckingham, East Dunbar, Cypress Lake, McGregor, Lovers Key State Park, Harlem Heights, Olga, Iona, Charleston Park, Gateway and Estero. - https://www.weather.gov/safety/flood

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles.

Be aware of your surroundings and do not drive on flooded roads.

 

Flood Watch

Until Fri 8:00 pm EDT

2 of 2

Action Recommended

Avoid the subject event as per the instructions

Issued By

Tampa Bay/Ruskin - FL, US, National Weather Service

Affected Area

Coastal Lee County

Description

...FLOOD WATCH NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING...

WHAT...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible.

WHERE...A portion of southwest Florida, including the following areas, Coastal Charlotte, Coastal Lee, Inland Charlotte and Inland Lee.

WHEN...Through Friday evening.

IMPACTS...Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations. Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - https://www.weather.gov/safety/flood

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

You should monitor later forecasts and be alert for possible Flood Warnings. Those living in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action should flooding develop

Let me back up and give context.

We are 13 days into June and it is thirteen days into the start of hurricane season. 

Currently, we have had 3 straight days of water just completely dumping buckets on our area. It lets up enough to drain a bit, then it starts right back in, as if to say "just kidding!!". 

Luckily, up until this afternoon, the community where I live, hasn't flooded out. 

I mean, some of the intersections have been closed because of the standing water (as in, it's above the tires on your car), but for the most part, there's no "lake front property" inside the gated community. 

Low lying areas have been hit the hardest - the University Publix (by Florida Southwestern State College) was completely under water yesterday afternoon. That parking lot was a swimming pool. Some of the communities along that route have cars hanging out in a good half foot of water, if not a little more. 

The area of the city my job is in, floods on a dime anyway, so we've been watching the business parking lot fill with water, go down, then fill again. Also, watching cars speed through the adjacent lots and create monsoon waves is not fun.

So today, I get to work. Do my job for a few hours and my phone is blowing up.

The flood advisories and the warnings about the areas I travel being completely blocked by water hazard. 

Great; how am I to get home? All roads lead to possibly buying a new car if I try to get through it all. 

Talking it out with a few people who live along the same route I take, are as concerned for their safety as I am. 

The second in command (boss junior) hears us all conspiring, and asks what's going on. We explain that we are worried about traveling in this weather, as the governor has declared a state of emergency for Florida (since areas such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale are getting as much if not worse than Fort Myers in the way of treacherous rainfall). So we were all talking how we are worried about our commute out of the office since we all live in the same area and know those roads are closing due to flooding. 

My mother even texted me saying the main entrance to our community is completely under water. 

Boss junior takes a look at his phone and ignores us for a few minutes. I think he was looking at radars, because he said "the rain will be stopping in a couple hours and then start for another hour or so. But it's the flooding that will come in at 6 tonight with high tide. That's when it's going to get rough". 

Great; six pm is when everyone leaves the office. Just in time for worse flooding. 

We all look at each other like "what the hell...." and he goes on to tell us that if we don't feel safe and want to leave we can, but the office is remaining open. 

He walks away.

So we all talk about it for a few minutes and make the judgment call: We're going to our supervisor (who is HR) and we're gonna leave. Or at least see what other recourse we have. 

Go in to HR and tell her what's going on and the conversation with boss junior. 

She looks at the weather map and tells one of the people to bring their work laptop home and can finish their shift remotely. I, unfortunately, am not that lucky. I have the take the rest of the day unpaid. 

Yup. Due to my position in the company, I am essential enough to be full time in house, but not essential enough that I have a company provided laptop. 

Not that I want it, because I don't. 

So I ended up working for 5 hours and 25 minutes today because the roads were getting super bad and the rain was falling immensely harder. 

As I drove home, there were stranded cars on the side of the road. Parking lots full of water. Rain coming down so hard, my wipers couldn't keep up. 

I knew the front (main) entrance to my community was already bad, so I needed to go the long way and get to the resident (second) entrance. 

Which turns out to be flooded as well. 

Once I got thru the gate, both left and right roads were washed out. I only realized that after I took a left onto what would become my street. 

I turned around to go another way, only to find that road flooded too. I had to keep going; there's no other way to get to my house. 

Passing by one of the man made lakes in the community... almost to the street. The houses along the lake have water close to their lanai. 

I kept going through a lot of water. 

As I made it on my street, my battery light started flickering. I couldn't stop because there was too much water. 

When I finally got into the driveway, my car started making deathly screeching sounds as I parked. 

I'm totally not looking forward to getting out there tomorrow and seeing if it turns on and I can move it.

I shut my car off, took my shoes off, and walked through almost knee deep water in the middle of the road. 

The video I'm adding doesn't do this all justice because it looks shallower than it is. 

Which is why they say "turn around, don't drown".

Video taken with an iPhone 11 and edited with Pinnacle Studio 18 (now it's up to 26). I didn't do any major flash or audio because I wanted to just upload the raw file with my name on it.

They always say "it may not look deep, but the second you go through it, it will be worse than you think".

Six inches of water is all it takes to move objects, they say. 

Sure enough, between the roads I frequent and the walk across the street... pretty good probability that it won't go down so quickly. 

So if I can't start my car tomorrow, I'm either getting the battery jumped and going to work; or getting the battery jumped and not going to work. I'll be out to get a new car instead.

Which I don't want to have to do. I'm not looking forward to that, as I just got the AC fixed in it. Should have used that as my sign of more ominous things to come.

 Anyway, my mom is watching the rain come down, watched me cross the street, and said to me that this is worse than the hurricane because we didn't get as much water in the back yard then, as we did today. More roads are flooded with this rain than the debris havoc wreaked with Ian. 

Talk about a new update for my blog. Haha. Guess this is what it's going to be like for the next several months...

I don't know what to say except "stay dry" and "hope we don't get crazier weather patterns and the hurricanes stay away!".

Can I move back north now???

I probably need to do some things around the house now that I've been working on this post for over an hour and not paying attention to anything else... 

Until the next post...

Cheers;