Reflections on the Fourth Week of Winter – “I Can’t Get Home”

 

    Rain, that began at nightfall Wednesday, still pounded our metal roof Thursday morning while we ate breakfast. A female voice drifted out of the bedroom. I left my hash browns to investigate. A message flashed across my cell phone screen. “Flood warning in your area until 10:30 a.m.”

    The warning reminded me of the day in June 2015 when I couldn’t get home because the culverts under the road on both sides of our house had collapsed. Torrents of water, from streams that dried up in the summer, dug car-swallowing trenches across the road. “Will I be able to get home today,” I joked. The flood warming was for the morning. I wouldn’t be returning till mid afternoon.

    “The culverts should hold,” Spence said.

    Under umbrellas and sharing the load of my purse, lunch, water bottle, Learning Center bag, swim bag, and an empty sunflower seed bag I wanted to match to webbing for handles to make a large tote bag, we walked to the garage. Muddy Deer Creek roared in the valley and rushed over the flood plane.

    Spence stared down West Creek Road. “The culvert’s holding. You’ll be fine.”

    With windshield wipers swishing at top speed, I drove the half mile up a grade, around the bend, and down the slope to Route 173. Along the wet state road, I wound my way to the bridge into Cochranton then glanced at French Creek. Groves of trees, that usually lined the water, stood in a sea of brown waves.

    Just in case, I didn’t follow Route 322 along the French Creek flood plain and drove uphill to Mercer Pike along the ridge. The new Subaru Crosstrek splashed through driveway runoff. Emerging waterfalls cascaded off hillsides. Ponds formed in every yard and field. But, in the Crosstrek with higher road clearance than the old Impreza I’d driven in 2015, I navigated the wet roads into Meadville.

    After coaching children to read about a moose who wanted muffins, to match sounds with letters, and to write coordinates for points in line drawings, I swam three-quarters of a mile in a crowded pool, gulped my lunch while driving to Jo-Ann Fabrics, and bought webbing to make handles for the tote bag.

    Time to head home.

    Rain hammered then pattered. I imagined flooding over the back roads across Meadville swamp so headed home on Route 322.

    Turning right at the last stop light in Meadville, I had a tractor trailer ahead of me, a line of cars behind, and a steady stream of oncoming vehicles. I was stuck, and planted in the berm was a new “High Water” sign. But the next quarter mile of wet road reassured me. Maybe the sign meant high water was possible.

    Then the tractor trailer hit the water. Fountains of spray rose from both of its sides and arced higher than the trailer itself.

    Good grief.

    Since the water only covered our lane, I waited for two oncoming cars then drove in theirs. That worked until water pooled in both lanes and lapped over the yellow middle line.

    I steered the Crosstrek to straddle the higher middle and crept forward.

    Would the car stall? Would it wash off the road?

    When oncoming traffic came, I stopped and let them pass. Waves lapped against the tires. I followed behind and to the side of the tractor trailer for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only an eighth of a mile.

    Back on wet, not flooded pavement, I exhaled.

    Phew.

    The Crosstrek splashed, windshield wipers swished, and I took the cutoff into Cochranton. That road dipped, and what looked like wet pavement was actually two inches of standing water. The Crosstrek sprayed through and kept rolling all the way to Milledgeville.

    “I can get home,” I told the wipers and turned onto West Creek Road. “Only a half mile to go.”

    I paused to gape at the second mobile home. Water pooled from the front steps and driveway to the middle of the road. That family wouldn’t drive into their garage any time soon.

    I didn’t either.

    The culvert between the third mobile home and Flickenger’s horse pasture was too small to accommodate the volume of water. A surge, twelve feet wide, crossed the road and blocked my way.

    I called Spence on the cell phone. “I can’t get home,” I said in a wavering voice. “The drainage ditch by Flickenger’s pasture flooded the road.” I turned around in the driveway that hadn’t flooded, drove back to Route 173, and turned right.

    “I thought that culvert would flood,” he said. “It’s so close to the road surface. Just turn around and come the back way.”

   “I am,” I said with my signal clicking right to take Carlton Road which ran parallel to West Creek but higher up the hill. Water overflowed the drainage ditch and streamed across the intersection. “Oh, shoot.”

     “What?”

    “The drainage ditch is overflowing.” Because the overflow was only two and a half feet wide, I took a chance to plow through without damaging the car. The Crosstrek forded the stream, accelerated uphill, and wound around curves.

    Spence’s voice calmed me. Relief. I’d be home in six more miles.

    I chatted with Spence until, in the middle explaining my watery adventures, we lost connection.

    Then I headed down hill towards Carlton. Branches and clumps of leaves littered the road where water had washed earlier. At the bottom of the hill by the seed farm, a man in a pickup coming toward me had to stop until I passed because mud and brown water covered his lane.

    I turned right onto New Lebanon Road. The road surface was only wet, not flooded. I could handle wet. But driving up the grade to the bridge over Deer Creek, I met water pouring down the opposite lane and trickling across mine.

    Sheesh.

    The Crosstrek crunched tree limbs, splashed, and drove through. I turned right onto Deer Creek Road.

    Three miles to go.

    Water crept up the flood plain to the edge of the narrow country road. Deer Creek roared under the next bridge. At the top of yet another hill, runoff from Barb’s driveway pooled in my lane. I swerved to the avoid the water. Squeezing the steering wheel, I drove straight onto West Creek Road and approached the stream where a new culvert had replaced one that collapsed in 2015.

    Would the new culvert handle the deluge?

    It did.

    I took a calming yoga breath, honked my horn frantically when I passed our log house, and drove into the garage.

    Between the house and the garage, Spence, under his umbrella, met me under mine.

    “You didn’t have to come out in the rain,” I said. “I just honked to let you know I was back.”

   “I didn’t hear that,” he said taking half of my bags. “I was coming out to get the truck and go find you.”

    Back inside, I dropped my gear and, in a teary voice, whispered, “I’m home,” before collapsing in Spence’s strong, warm arms.