Every single time it floods in Houston (which is several times every year) there's always at least one muppet who thinks their truck will get through the water.
I saw a pickup with an outboard in the weekend. That'd be handy in this situation.
Think they were just transporting it though, but it did remind me of a certain car show hijinks.
I think they meant Top Gear when they drove vehicles across the English Channel. Clarkson mounted an outboard to the back of a Toyota pickup.
https://youtu.be/YVjo6YOT3Zg?si=CzjIZTObH-QL3lm5
[He specifically chose the Hilux/Tacoma because they once tried to test out the rumors of the truck being the sturdiest.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk)
If you don't have 15 minutes:
>!Bought a second-hand rusty Toyota. Smashed it through a city. Smashed it with a wrecking ball and dropped an RV on it. Drowned it in the ocean. Burnt it. Then they set it on top of a skyscraper being detonated and literally blew the fucker up. No spare parts or replacemet, just some grease and wrenches. Still started AND DROVE every single time. Since they could not kill the truck, they build a giant trophy display to set it on, retired it and put it in a car museum.!<
TG is known for silliness and accurate reporting, at least honest opinions lol
In Arizona they passed a law called “the stupid motorists law” that said you would be charged for the rescue efforts if you drove into a road that was marked closed due to flooding
I think more things need this kind of naming because while some people couldn't care less about incurring fines or points on their license, they will go out of their way to not be considered an idiot (especially if they are one)
Similar thing in Minnesota if you go through the ice during the winter. Gotta pay a bunch of people and you get fined every day your vehicle is underwater. Costly affair to pull up a truck in the middle of winter from 100 feet down.
Crazy how they'll protect taxpayers from some stupidity of others but not if they run a C-suite and tank a company. Then we foot the bill for the bailout. While the same idiots who caused the mess gets a nice severe package and bonus to walk away from it all to go do it all again somewhere else.
Yup. Spent my first 28 years of life in Houston, and there are no shortage of dumbasses who think they can make it through. Of course, it doesn't help that alot of employers will ask their employees to get to work somehow despite there being a hurricane and massive flooding.
Yeah, we'll dock your performance review and you better not call out less than 7 days prior. But there's a hurricane? Sorry, should have thought about asking to not come in last week.
I've had a 4x4, and I played with it to know the limits.
They can do a lot more than a normal car.
Like getting ***really, really*** badly stuck somewhere *very far* from where a tow car can get to.
Yeah I heard a funny saying once “4X4 allows you to get stuck 4X further away from civilization than in a 2WD” lol. The other issue is 4WD recovery services are often thousands of dollars if someone has to drive hours to tow you out of a ditch, or all the way to a mechanic.
I had a 96 4WD Toyota 4 Runner and later I has a 2000 2wd Tacoma and I found the Tacoma was easier to get into some steep slippery places like steep driveways or roads, and easier to recover yourself using boards or a winch because the rear end and vehicle overall is so light.
The 4Runner was heavy as shit and got like 10mpg off-road or less with the V6 lol, so I was always getting bogged down in mud if I had to go slow because of it’s heavy weight, and it was a pain having to carry extra gasoline because it only had a 200 mile range if you were planning conservatively to find another gas station in time and driving in 4wd offroad and using more gas.
The other thing about all terrain tires is once they get clogged up with mud they might as well be slicks, so sometimes the better tires on a 4wd vehicles don’t make that much difference either. The 4Runner was a more capable vehicle overall, but when you drive a good 2wd truck you realize you don’t actually need 4wd very often and it’s much cheaper to operate a 2wd.
Haven't lived in Houston in about a decade but this was 100% true in my experience. Usually more than one, too! I don't get why people just send it - often that water is moving fairly swiftly too!
A decade-ish ago, [Calgary mayor made this PSA](https://youtu.be/md_GrKpdEgM?si=FBX5-1wF5tHFp5br) when the city was experiencing flooding. I believe this was the same flood that caused extensive damage to the Saddledome arena with water levels going as high as rows 6/7 in the arena.
The last time I saw that kind of thing was like a decade ago in Wallington, where a pond formed in the dip beneath the railway bridge.
As I was heading to the bank, two cars were stranded trying to ford the pond, and as I was coming back, I saw a THIRD CAR actively trying to ford the pond, despite there already being TWO SUNKEN CARS in the pond, and I got to watch in real-time as it sank like the Thunderchild.
In New Orleans there was a train bridge at the end of my block that flooded if three people watered their lawns. Got so bad that whenever there was a storm, the local news would station a crew there to see how long it took for someone to try and drive through it. And someone always did.
After a particularly good storm or hurricane, people would take their kayaks out on the temporary pond just because they could.
If it makes you feel better, there’s also at least one group from Texas a year who gets embarrassingly stuck in the mountains here in Colorado. Usually after destroying high elevation tundra or “opening” trails that remain closed most of the year for good reason.
That is a wonderful fact. I've loved this song for the past 25 years, because it used to be the closing song for the end of summer camp dance. In the back of my head I was always confused about the levee thing
Yeah people seem to forget that ground clearance isn't enough. You also need to see where the road is. In the city it might not be too bad but in more rural areas it's easy to end up in the ditch if you can't see it.
Yeah, was driving to work in Houston at one point, and found a major intersection near my apartment that had probably 3" of standing water in it. Decided that was enough for me to not bother figuring out how bad the rest of the roads on the way to my office were going to be. Turned around and worked from home. Obviously not everyone has that luxury, and there are idiot businesses that were open today, but really not worth the risk.
Yes, it only takes 6" of flowing water to knock an average adult down and you also can't see the condition of the road. Aside from that, you generally want to have as little contact with flood water as possible because it's nasty poo water and often full of hazardous materials (though that clearly didn't work here lol).
It's not like the water was nearly that high when he first got stranded either, no truck is going through half that much moving water. Maybe doesn't know how to swim and was too scared to try.
Highways are designed to flood in order to retain and direct water during major events. With such a flat topography near the coast, it’s necessary. The thinking goes: if a bad storm comes by, people aren’t going to go out in it so the roads can flood so long as property does not… And then you have dumbasses like this
Imagine 7” of rainfall in something like a glass, it’s not much volume. Now imagine how much volume 7” of rainfall is over several square miles. What you are seeing is the result of all that rain pooling and concentrating into channels and low lying areas as it flows back out to the ocean. With Houston being so flat, it doesn’t want to drain very fast, and with most of Houston being covered in concrete the rain accumulates into these channels very quickly. The result is flooding like this. Roads are used as retention to store the rapid runoff so it can drain in a controlled manner.
EDIT: To clarify some discourse further down this chain: By law developers are required to build retention for each area of land to keep the runoff speeds the same as when the land was fallow. There are storm drains, however they are routed to the roads as secondary channels with other earthen channels providing retention themselves (see slow draining speed above). And while I’m sure other areas receive similar or greater magnitudes of rainfall, remember: Houston’s topography is mostly flat, and a hurricane is not your every day rainstorm.
Not to be nitpicky and anal...but I think you mean detention ponds. Retention ponds are designed to hold some amount of runoff indefinitely and only control overflow, not to slowly distribute all of it into the network during heavily rain. Detention ponds are the much more common variety that hold runoff temporarily (and are the ones that are usually dry most of the time). Most developments go detention. Retention is usually used on larger sites such as a subdivision or business park...they are similar but different in function.
It makes perfect sense
You know what we do elsewhere? We build retention ponds that are separate from roads and other infrastructure. We don’t use roads as retention ponds.
This does work though. Just…don’t think it’s the best solution.
Here in Arizona, we build playgrounds and parks in our retention ponds and flood channels....
I'm not kidding, want to play Frisbee Golf in a flash flood zone? https://www.discgolfscene.com/courses/Thunderbird-Paseo/Hole_1
They have enough retention ponds for the average amount of rainfall. This amount of flooding only happens every few years, and shutting down the highways for a few days is better than turning half of Houston into extra retention ponds that will only be needed twice a decade.
Does this "elsewhere" experience direct hurricanes?
When you say "pond" I think of something behind a mall parking lot. Which would flood within an hour and youd be back to the same problem of flooded streets. Unless youre talking about a massive resovoir, retention ponds would do effectively nothing against a storm this size.
Lots of good answers here, but I'll add one specific to today. This is the Bray's Bayou drainage. It flows into Buffalo Bayou, which becomes the Houston Ship Channel (45' depth) and that drains into the Bay. The storm this morning created a storm surge of 8 feet pretty far inland on the ship channel. Because of this, the tributaries could not easily drain into the channel. Imagine 8 feet of water coming all the way in from the Gulf, 50 miles away!
At the time of filming in this part of Houston (I had the stream and radar up since I live just north) the south loop had reached 8.5 inches of radar indicated precipitation and has closed out the day north of 15 inches
Do they have storm drains in Texas?
Edit: Got enough replies. The answer I've gotten essentially boil down to, it's a flood plain with low elevation above sea level. A lot of areas don't have storm drains, though some do. The freeways are designed to act like aqueducts because they figure nobody is going to try to drive on them. No amount of construction can possibly drain the amount of rain they get in a short period. And I am a genius for asking.
Yes but it’s really crazy how fast it can flood. I lived just outside of Houston for a few years and our yard front sloped upward towards the house from the street. There were several times when it would be pouring and we would be looking at our cars in the driveway wondering if this was finally the time the water would reach them and something crazy would happen. Then the rain would stop and in like 30 minutes the water would have already drained away.
Texas is very flat. You can't engineer your way out of that. It has drains but at the end of the day, if you're only starting 10 ft above sea level you won't have much actual flow.
Houston [urban planning](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/harvey-urban-planning/) more or less [ignored flood plains](https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/would-zoning-change-houstons-flooding), and [allowed paved sprawl](https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/houston-harvey-flooding-urban-planning/index.html).
At a resort I worked at here in Vermont we had huge signs all over the mountain for skiers letting them know that if they went off piste, they would be billed for their rescue with no exceptions.
If I remember correctly last time this came up if it is clearly posted or beyond reasonable to assume safety they can optionally bill you.
The one that comes to mind was a guy ignored "Road Closed Due to Flooding" and ended up floating away, so he broke the law and his own stupidity caused the state to have to spend time and money to save him rather than focus on those they were evacuating.
Pfft you're just a soyboy commie from commiefornia
This is TEXAS where manly men do manly things like freeze to death during a winter storm and pretend our truck is equally as capable as our egos are fragile
Good luck getting to your job any time soon without a vehicle or the savings to get a new one. I understand the sentiment on this, but in this specific case it doesn't make sense. There had to be a different way to get into work if that's even what this person was attempting to do.
I’m from California too and you are really underestimating some of our fellow Californians who have ABSOLUTELY ignored evacuation notices and have tried driving on freeways with hills that are on fire on one or both sides.
I always assume people who do this, aside from a few exceptional dumb asses, are doing this on purpose because they're struggling to keep up with the monthly payment and/or it has mechanical issues so they total their vehicle to get rid of the vehicle.
True. Hopefully they have GAP. But even if they don't then it would still cover a large portion of the loan (assuming they didn't roll negative equity into the loan from their previous car) and the payment would be more mangeable.
The rest of the coastal regions of the US that actually get hurricanes this severe and wet aren't as populated as Florida and Houston. I guess Florida doesn't have as many low spots for it to collect like this since they're even closer to sea level. I recall NYC having some exciting vids on the internet down in the subways during superstorm Sandy and such though.
When I was little, maybe 10, we had a big flood in Kentucky. The highway was flooded pretty bad. My uncle convinced my dad it was ok. I remember hearing/feeling the water slapping a good 6 inches against the door. Next thing you know. We started sliding around with no traction. I only got scared when I could tell my dad and uncle were a little worried. Luckily, this whole experience was only about 20 yards. We made it, but it was a little much. Mom was definitely not happy to hear the story coming out of an excited 10 year old's mouth. It was also a sedan. Not any big truck, or Jeep, or anything.
Probably a few times a year. We had a strong storm called a Derecho about a two months ago which caused a lot of wind damage, this is the first Hurricane of the season so we might be hit with another
This is fake. No little hurricane can stop an AMERICAN BUILT TRUCK. especially not one the driver can barely see over and has never hauled anything more than groceries
Below grade rescue is very risky. It doesnt seem like a 180# person would tip it over but there is a ton of variables here. This is damn near the worst way to position the truck (they dont have other options) but doing anything else puts others at risk.
# “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ”
The absolute fucking terror that grips my chest looking at this is unreal. I dunno if car person knew how much danger they were in but it makes me absolutely nauseous.
I'm no rescue expert but that looks like a job which could have been done by tossing a rope no? He's like at most 4 car width away from the "shore" of this flooded highway.
Every single time it floods in Houston (which is several times every year) there's always at least one muppet who thinks their truck will get through the water.
It’s a Ford 4x4, it can get through anything…. Oh shit I’m floating
I saw a pickup with an outboard in the weekend. That'd be handy in this situation. Think they were just transporting it though, but it did remind me of a certain car show hijinks.
Ford Found (truck) On River Dead
Float Or Row, Dummy
FORD the river. 
Oooo thats a good one.
It was a Hilux, and it sank the first time
The first time! Love it.Little WD -40 a adjustable spanner and some bourbon and that TACO is ready for round 2 baby.
Floats On Rivers, Duh!
Fix it again, Tony
It’s all in the name: For Off River Driving
Still better then a Cheap Heavy Equipment Vehicle Yo
Was it a Toybota
Prolly a Shipsubishi
Are you sure it wasn't a Pontooniac?
A boatswagon maybe
This made me chuckle loudly.
[Never forget what they took from us](https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Toybota?file=Top_gear_toybota_2)
Yo Dawg, we heard you like driving your truck through flood planes....
I think they meant Top Gear when they drove vehicles across the English Channel. Clarkson mounted an outboard to the back of a Toyota pickup. https://youtu.be/YVjo6YOT3Zg?si=CzjIZTObH-QL3lm5
Ah, nice!
[He specifically chose the Hilux/Tacoma because they once tried to test out the rumors of the truck being the sturdiest.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk) If you don't have 15 minutes: >!Bought a second-hand rusty Toyota. Smashed it through a city. Smashed it with a wrecking ball and dropped an RV on it. Drowned it in the ocean. Burnt it. Then they set it on top of a skyscraper being detonated and literally blew the fucker up. No spare parts or replacemet, just some grease and wrenches. Still started AND DROVE every single time. Since they could not kill the truck, they build a giant trophy display to set it on, retired it and put it in a car museum.!< TG is known for silliness and accurate reporting, at least honest opinions lol
I love Top Gear and this is one of my favorite episodes.
“This engine weighs as much as an American”…. Well he’s not wrong…
> a certain car show hijinks. *Sometimes, if you listen very carefully, you can hear m'genius.*
I wonder if will insurance cover such a loss? It's not like they had 1000's of warning or anything
They shoulda gotten one of those trucks that can “briefly serve as a boat”
Ford Ranger would have made it no problem.
It's not a problem until you stop floating. 😂
Pavement princess
And it’s Texas, it’s not a 4x4, it’s a 2x4
[удалено]
In Arizona they passed a law called “the stupid motorists law” that said you would be charged for the rescue efforts if you drove into a road that was marked closed due to flooding
I really hope that's what it's legally called in the state laws.
No, it's ARS 28-910 and it's very dry. However, the Phoenix City fire department website does describe it as the Stupid Motorist Law.
I think more things need this kind of naming because while some people couldn't care less about incurring fines or points on their license, they will go out of their way to not be considered an idiot (especially if they are one)
Similar thing in Minnesota if you go through the ice during the winter. Gotta pay a bunch of people and you get fined every day your vehicle is underwater. Costly affair to pull up a truck in the middle of winter from 100 feet down.
Crazy how they'll protect taxpayers from some stupidity of others but not if they run a C-suite and tank a company. Then we foot the bill for the bailout. While the same idiots who caused the mess gets a nice severe package and bonus to walk away from it all to go do it all again somewhere else.
Yup. Spent my first 28 years of life in Houston, and there are no shortage of dumbasses who think they can make it through. Of course, it doesn't help that alot of employers will ask their employees to get to work somehow despite there being a hurricane and massive flooding.
Yeah, we'll dock your performance review and you better not call out less than 7 days prior. But there's a hurricane? Sorry, should have thought about asking to not come in last week.
I've had a 4x4, and I played with it to know the limits. They can do a lot more than a normal car. Like getting ***really, really*** badly stuck somewhere *very far* from where a tow car can get to.
Always. And it’s always super muddy and then you are covered also.
Except that time when it was snow.
It's like 2 feet of water that makes a car float..I'm sure something taller and heavier will take more water, but not much
Yeah I heard a funny saying once “4X4 allows you to get stuck 4X further away from civilization than in a 2WD” lol. The other issue is 4WD recovery services are often thousands of dollars if someone has to drive hours to tow you out of a ditch, or all the way to a mechanic. I had a 96 4WD Toyota 4 Runner and later I has a 2000 2wd Tacoma and I found the Tacoma was easier to get into some steep slippery places like steep driveways or roads, and easier to recover yourself using boards or a winch because the rear end and vehicle overall is so light. The 4Runner was heavy as shit and got like 10mpg off-road or less with the V6 lol, so I was always getting bogged down in mud if I had to go slow because of it’s heavy weight, and it was a pain having to carry extra gasoline because it only had a 200 mile range if you were planning conservatively to find another gas station in time and driving in 4wd offroad and using more gas. The other thing about all terrain tires is once they get clogged up with mud they might as well be slicks, so sometimes the better tires on a 4wd vehicles don’t make that much difference either. The 4Runner was a more capable vehicle overall, but when you drive a good 2wd truck you realize you don’t actually need 4wd very often and it’s much cheaper to operate a 2wd.
This dude definitely 4x4s. And has gotten stuck 30 miles from pavement.
Haven't lived in Houston in about a decade but this was 100% true in my experience. Usually more than one, too! I don't get why people just send it - often that water is moving fairly swiftly too!
A decade-ish ago, [Calgary mayor made this PSA](https://youtu.be/md_GrKpdEgM?si=FBX5-1wF5tHFp5br) when the city was experiencing flooding. I believe this was the same flood that caused extensive damage to the Saddledome arena with water levels going as high as rows 6/7 in the arena.
That was freaking awesome! Thank you!
The last time I saw that kind of thing was like a decade ago in Wallington, where a pond formed in the dip beneath the railway bridge. As I was heading to the bank, two cars were stranded trying to ford the pond, and as I was coming back, I saw a THIRD CAR actively trying to ford the pond, despite there already being TWO SUNKEN CARS in the pond, and I got to watch in real-time as it sank like the Thunderchild.
WAKA! WAKA!
Just put the 4WD into flash flood mode.
It's always a pickup truck.
In New Orleans there was a train bridge at the end of my block that flooded if three people watered their lawns. Got so bad that whenever there was a storm, the local news would station a crew there to see how long it took for someone to try and drive through it. And someone always did. After a particularly good storm or hurricane, people would take their kayaks out on the temporary pond just because they could.
My old boss called idiots muppets too!
One year, they need to televise that muppet stuck in the water and not rescue them at all. Then let that serve as a warning to all future muppets.
If it makes you feel better, there’s also at least one group from Texas a year who gets embarrassingly stuck in the mountains here in Colorado. Usually after destroying high elevation tundra or “opening” trails that remain closed most of the year for good reason.
I was going to say... *Every. Single. Time.* I'm guessing this is Memorial, which does seem to catch more than it's fair share of idiots.
Think it's the same guy every time? "No, no, no. *This* time I will get through"
Honestly I read the title as “**Standard** driver who drove into a flood in Houston” and it still made sense.
It's not an amphibious exploring vehicle.
Can't make the payment special
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was NOT dry
He fought the flood and the flood won
Flood In, Flood Out
Can't explain that
The good ol boys were cherry picking this guy, singing this ol dumbass gonna die, this ol dumbass gonna dieeee
Brilliant
Fun fact, The Levee in the song is referencing a bar.
That is a wonderful fact. I've loved this song for the past 25 years, because it used to be the closing song for the end of summer camp dance. In the back of my head I was always confused about the levee thing
Every Fucking Time. When I lived in Houston the rule was if the water was too deep to see the lines on the road, it was too deep to drive through.
Yeah people seem to forget that ground clearance isn't enough. You also need to see where the road is. In the city it might not be too bad but in more rural areas it's easy to end up in the ditch if you can't see it.
Yeah, was driving to work in Houston at one point, and found a major intersection near my apartment that had probably 3" of standing water in it. Decided that was enough for me to not bother figuring out how bad the rest of the roads on the way to my office were going to be. Turned around and worked from home. Obviously not everyone has that luxury, and there are idiot businesses that were open today, but really not worth the risk.
Video of rescue. https://x.com/billbishopkhou/status/1810340784337461657?s=46&t=KA_EbYCZNe4Jy4B4vbHT0w
Hah, they made him get in the water.
Kinda shocking he couldn't wade through that or swim
yeah, is there a danger of a super strong current taking him away or something?
Yes, it only takes 6" of flowing water to knock an average adult down and you also can't see the condition of the road. Aside from that, you generally want to have as little contact with flood water as possible because it's nasty poo water and often full of hazardous materials (though that clearly didn't work here lol).
It's not like the water was nearly that high when he first got stranded either, no truck is going through half that much moving water. Maybe doesn't know how to swim and was too scared to try.
It’s tempting to call the number on the back of the truck and tell them what we think of their driving
lol his phone number is on the truck. Poor guy.
https://x.com/nickabc13/status/1810342134698111288 clearer video
From the outside looking in, it's weird that the highways in Houston are specifically designed to flood.
Highways are designed to flood in order to retain and direct water during major events. With such a flat topography near the coast, it’s necessary. The thinking goes: if a bad storm comes by, people aren’t going to go out in it so the roads can flood so long as property does not… And then you have dumbasses like this
I understand the structural reasons, but it's still strange to think that what we're looking at here is 7" of rainfall.
Imagine 7” of rainfall in something like a glass, it’s not much volume. Now imagine how much volume 7” of rainfall is over several square miles. What you are seeing is the result of all that rain pooling and concentrating into channels and low lying areas as it flows back out to the ocean. With Houston being so flat, it doesn’t want to drain very fast, and with most of Houston being covered in concrete the rain accumulates into these channels very quickly. The result is flooding like this. Roads are used as retention to store the rapid runoff so it can drain in a controlled manner. EDIT: To clarify some discourse further down this chain: By law developers are required to build retention for each area of land to keep the runoff speeds the same as when the land was fallow. There are storm drains, however they are routed to the roads as secondary channels with other earthen channels providing retention themselves (see slow draining speed above). And while I’m sure other areas receive similar or greater magnitudes of rainfall, remember: Houston’s topography is mostly flat, and a hurricane is not your every day rainstorm.
Not to be nitpicky and anal...but I think you mean detention ponds. Retention ponds are designed to hold some amount of runoff indefinitely and only control overflow, not to slowly distribute all of it into the network during heavily rain. Detention ponds are the much more common variety that hold runoff temporarily (and are the ones that are usually dry most of the time). Most developments go detention. Retention is usually used on larger sites such as a subdivision or business park...they are similar but different in function.
No offense taken, my expertise is in structures/construction. I knew I could speak generally on the topic at least.
It makes perfect sense You know what we do elsewhere? We build retention ponds that are separate from roads and other infrastructure. We don’t use roads as retention ponds. This does work though. Just…don’t think it’s the best solution.
Houston urban planner: “Retention ponds?? That would just get in the way of building more parking lots!”
And wider highways!
And more torchys
Never too many Torchys
We have retention ponds
Here in Arizona, we build playgrounds and parks in our retention ponds and flood channels.... I'm not kidding, want to play Frisbee Golf in a flash flood zone? https://www.discgolfscene.com/courses/Thunderbird-Paseo/Hole_1
They have enough retention ponds for the average amount of rainfall. This amount of flooding only happens every few years, and shutting down the highways for a few days is better than turning half of Houston into extra retention ponds that will only be needed twice a decade.
Twice a decade....so far.
To be fair it likely wasn’t so bad decades ago when this stuff was probably planned, but shits been wild these days
Does this "elsewhere" experience direct hurricanes? When you say "pond" I think of something behind a mall parking lot. Which would flood within an hour and youd be back to the same problem of flooded streets. Unless youre talking about a massive resovoir, retention ponds would do effectively nothing against a storm this size.
Lots of good answers here, but I'll add one specific to today. This is the Bray's Bayou drainage. It flows into Buffalo Bayou, which becomes the Houston Ship Channel (45' depth) and that drains into the Bay. The storm this morning created a storm surge of 8 feet pretty far inland on the ship channel. Because of this, the tributaries could not easily drain into the channel. Imagine 8 feet of water coming all the way in from the Gulf, 50 miles away!
1 inch of rain per acre is 27,000 gallons Houston area is many acres
At the time of filming in this part of Houston (I had the stream and radar up since I live just north) the south loop had reached 8.5 inches of radar indicated precipitation and has closed out the day north of 15 inches
Do they have storm drains in Texas? Edit: Got enough replies. The answer I've gotten essentially boil down to, it's a flood plain with low elevation above sea level. A lot of areas don't have storm drains, though some do. The freeways are designed to act like aqueducts because they figure nobody is going to try to drive on them. No amount of construction can possibly drain the amount of rain they get in a short period. And I am a genius for asking.
Yes but it’s really crazy how fast it can flood. I lived just outside of Houston for a few years and our yard front sloped upward towards the house from the street. There were several times when it would be pouring and we would be looking at our cars in the driveway wondering if this was finally the time the water would reach them and something crazy would happen. Then the rain would stop and in like 30 minutes the water would have already drained away.
In a sense, you're looking at it.
Nope! We just let everything flood!
Turns out paving over wetlands is a bad thing! If only there were rules to regulate such things. But that’s anti freedom commie talk
Texas is very flat. You can't engineer your way out of that. It has drains but at the end of the day, if you're only starting 10 ft above sea level you won't have much actual flow.
Just how large do you think a storm drain would have to be to carry that flood?
Houston [urban planning](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/harvey-urban-planning/) more or less [ignored flood plains](https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/would-zoning-change-houstons-flooding), and [allowed paved sprawl](https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/houston-harvey-flooding-urban-planning/index.html).
Send this dumb dumb the bill for the rescue
That's what we do in Arizona 😂
At a resort I worked at here in Vermont we had huge signs all over the mountain for skiers letting them know that if they went off piste, they would be billed for their rescue with no exceptions.
Piste: a ski run made of compacted snow Thanks for teaching me a new word!
If you make it... guy died out of bounds at Stowe this winter. I guess they could still go after his estate for the search and rescue costs?
Yeah, we had a few back in my day as well from accidents and/or ill preparation.
Interesting. SAR in the state is free. I assume if it’s marked on private land, you’re allowed to bill?
If I remember correctly last time this came up if it is clearly posted or beyond reasonable to assume safety they can optionally bill you. The one that comes to mind was a guy ignored "Road Closed Due to Flooding" and ended up floating away, so he broke the law and his own stupidity caused the state to have to spend time and money to save him rather than focus on those they were evacuating.
I thought the “optionally bill you” law was only activate in California, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Utah
Yup, “stupid motorist law”.
I see nothing wrong with that.
I think I've found a way gor Florida to abolish taxes and also increase government budget.
[удалено]
One of Arizona’s few laws that is generally loved by all.
Imagine being that guy in the photo for this wiki page lol Stupid motorist is his legacy
Jesus stay home people. I live in California and don't drive toward the wild fires during brush season, its not hard
Pfft you're just a soyboy commie from commiefornia This is TEXAS where manly men do manly things like freeze to death during a winter storm and pretend our truck is equally as capable as our egos are fragile
It's hard when your boss requires it and there's not enough in savings to job hunt.
My livelihood is not more important than my literal life. If my boss tells me to jump off a cliff I’m walking to the unemployment line every time
Good luck getting to your job any time soon without a vehicle or the savings to get a new one. I understand the sentiment on this, but in this specific case it doesn't make sense. There had to be a different way to get into work if that's even what this person was attempting to do.
Oh I'm sure there was a different way to work. The guy in the post is a Grade A Dumbass. I was saying staying home altogether isn't always an option.
I’m from California too and you are really underestimating some of our fellow Californians who have ABSOLUTELY ignored evacuation notices and have tried driving on freeways with hills that are on fire on one or both sides.
"Turn around, don't drown." Bro forgot the Houston slogan.
I always assume people who do this, aside from a few exceptional dumb asses, are doing this on purpose because they're struggling to keep up with the monthly payment and/or it has mechanical issues so they total their vehicle to get rid of the vehicle.
Idk if insurance will cover being a complete and total fucking moron.
They will. And then they will drop your dumb ass and not insure with you again.
Oh they will. Then they'll raise your rates or drop you completely, but insurance would be pretty worthless if it didn't cover idiocy.
If they don’t have gap insurance coverage, they could lose the vehicle and owe money 🤣
True. Hopefully they have GAP. But even if they don't then it would still cover a large portion of the loan (assuming they didn't roll negative equity into the loan from their previous car) and the payment would be more mangeable.
They need to make these idiots pay for their rescue!
It’s ma right t’drive where the HELL I want!
Hopefully this guy is just a dummy and wasn’t forced to drive for an emergency reason. Either way I’m glad he’s ok.
Im pretty sure you can’t park there
Why is it always Texans doing this shit?
Have you seen their school textbooks?
They have textbooks? I thought they just gave kids a bible and a gun and called it a day.
Or a football.
A good chunk of people in Texas sure haven't.
You mean the Bible?
The rest of the coastal regions of the US that actually get hurricanes this severe and wet aren't as populated as Florida and Houston. I guess Florida doesn't have as many low spots for it to collect like this since they're even closer to sea level. I recall NYC having some exciting vids on the internet down in the subways during superstorm Sandy and such though.
Arizonans are just as dumb…we just never see it here
I feel like I could also see this headline starting with “Florida Man”
~~Stranded~~ Stupid driver who drove into a flooded freeway getting rescued in Houston today
He couldn't swim the 5-10 feet to the shore there?
Texans ride horses. They don't "swim."
What did we learn?
Real genius
5k fine for stupidity!
It's ALWAYS a truck....
When I was little, maybe 10, we had a big flood in Kentucky. The highway was flooded pretty bad. My uncle convinced my dad it was ok. I remember hearing/feeling the water slapping a good 6 inches against the door. Next thing you know. We started sliding around with no traction. I only got scared when I could tell my dad and uncle were a little worried. Luckily, this whole experience was only about 20 yards. We made it, but it was a little much. Mom was definitely not happy to hear the story coming out of an excited 10 year old's mouth. It was also a sedan. Not any big truck, or Jeep, or anything.
Lucky it’s not an electric car or the sharks would get him.
Bro is 10 feet from the bank and needed to be rescued?
Can this mf'er not swim?
Never try your luck again
😳 I was just there last week, it had been the first time in 20 years that I have been there... How often is this??
Probably a few times a year. We had a strong storm called a Derecho about a two months ago which caused a lot of wind damage, this is the first Hurricane of the season so we might be hit with another
You need to Zelle me $200 first.
“Stranded” = Idiot
Years ago some guy tried to get rid of a VW bug from some crime and didn’t roll down the windows. Floated down the river through 3 towns 😂
Guy probably hates taxes going toward social programs but is happy to have taxes pay for shit like this. Send him the bill.
This is fake. No little hurricane can stop an AMERICAN BUILT TRUCK. especially not one the driver can barely see over and has never hauled anything more than groceries
He probably didn't have enough American flags on it
Send him the bill like we do in Arizona with our stupid motorist law.
Hope his insurance doesn’t cover the loss, intentional act.
Change my mind: Dumbass should get billed for this
hope the city makes the moron pay for the rescue
But they said "All Terrain!"
Looks like his truck almost made it through /s
I really hope they bill that idiot for the rescue costs.
Natural selection
Below grade rescue is very risky. It doesnt seem like a 180# person would tip it over but there is a ton of variables here. This is damn near the worst way to position the truck (they dont have other options) but doing anything else puts others at risk. # “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ”
If he bought a Cyber Truck he could use it as a boat!
So many BroDozers are going to FAFO in this hurricane.
The absolute fucking terror that grips my chest looking at this is unreal. I dunno if car person knew how much danger they were in but it makes me absolutely nauseous.
You can almost jump to the shore. Why risk a fireman’s life to rescue your dumbass? Texas “men”.
For the sake of Houston's citizens, I hope they charged him a lot for that rescue.
I'm no rescue expert but that looks like a job which could have been done by tossing a rope no? He's like at most 4 car width away from the "shore" of this flooded highway.
Bro was expecting to beat flood
Should this be under the subreddit, r/HMB?
Is this guy going to get some sort of fine by the city? How much do you think it'll be?
Is that a river or a highway?