We were on our way back from holiday in Maine; David and I had two sea kayaks strapped to the roof of the Prius, and we’d left Ellesworth with four fresh lobsters sealed in a box, a semi-surprise dinner for relatives we’d see near Boston. We knew the weather forecast, prominently featuring rain, and our goal was to leave Boston early in the evening and “beat the rain” on the way home.
As things turned out, we didn’t leave the Boston area until eight that night. Even in the best conditions, we’d be rolling into home by midnight, and these were far from the best conditions.
For the most part, we were just driving through a lot of rain. It was a lot of rain. I can’t emphasize this enough. The rain was constant, and high in volume, relentless. That said, we’ve driven through heavy rain before, so this was in a sense simply a long-term application of existing skills.
Our first real choice was whether to take I-95 or the Merritt Parkway. The Merritt has no trucks, but more ups and downs, and thus potentially low areas of flooding. We were perplexed because most of the time we checked for routes using Google Maps, I-95 was not offered at all, not even as an alternate or slower route; when it was, it was ten minutes longer. We decided to take our chances on the Merritt.
Most of the way, it was not terrible. We drove under the speed limit, and watched other cars pass us; we also passed cars that had given up earlier. The following was about two hours after leaving Boston, not long after we were on the Merritt, a bit north of Bridgeport, CT.
As we continued, signs of trouble increased. I looked at a weather radar map and saw we had driven squarely into the darkest swatch of the rain. We were getting hammered, and we slowed down, watching diligently for pooling water and vehicles in distress.
We started seeing problems regularly near New Canaan.
As we proceeded, we emerged from the heavy rain, but began seeing more signs of wind damage. These were all from a bit past Greenwich, CT.
By this point, our goal was to get on I-287, which would take us over the Tappan Zee Bridge. However, we weren’t sure what the best exit would be, and it was apparent that the situation would be constantly changing. We’d come across a scene like the following, and watch workers clear drainage. What was once a flooded road would quickly drain.
Alternately, we would come across a scene like the following, where official-looking vehicles were kinda blocking a road, but no one was present. To be fair, I expect the authorities had a lot to respond to that night, and at this point it was approaching midnight.
We did eventually get on the highway after cutting around the Westchester airport. The following is pretty long, the entire crossing of the bridge. The lighting and the architecture made me feel like we were in some surreal tunnel through time and space.
Once over the Hudson River, we turned to get onto 9W, and were immediately confronted with this challenge, whereupon David put the Prius into a sort of Jeep move.
That road runs along a ridge back to our township. There were a lot of trees, including a set I got out of the car for to ensure we had clearance to pass under. A car behind us honked at our diligence, and it and one other barreled past us once we were through.
We spotted this bit of water rushing out of a driveway.
That was pretty much all there was. The roads had gotten progressively worse, but the rain better, and in short order we were parking in the driveway and collecting the bare minimum of items from the car: perishable goods and clothes we would need.
We were very fortunate to have no flooding or problems with power. We both went to bed nearly immediately, viscerally aware of the strength of the storm and a bit, through reading, of the toll it was beginning to take.
In the days since, the full toll of Ida across the region and its long march have become clear. In particular for New York, City, several people died after finding themselves trapped in flooded basement apartments; others barely escaped with their lives. There will be plenty of furrowed-brow discussions and political blame-making, and announcements of new measures to mitigate such damage in the future, but only time will tell if anything good is to come.