Neighbor's New Pond

One of the few benign effects of the extensive flooding in Whatcom County and adjacent British Columbia. Here's a link to a drone video of some of the Bellingham flooding. Other towns had it worse and hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes.

I had a narrow escape before things got too bad.  Our neighbor, Ed, was having repair work on his car this week and had asked me to pick him up after he dropped the car off at the body shop on Sunday. I was driving west on Iowa Street (the first one seen in the video)  at 6:00 pm on Sunday when I saw a sign saying the right lane was closed due to water on the road. I moved into the left lane, and a few seconds later saw the car ahead of me creating big water waves. I couldn’t turn around so I just slowed down and tried not to panic — the bottom of the all-electric Kona is a huge battery and there’s not much ground clearance. 

I survived the immersion and arrived at my destination without any damage. Ed was nowhere to be found. I called and texted him but he didn't respond. The rain was torrential and the wind was howling. Hamish wasn't bothered, but after half an hour I thought it wise to return home -- by a different route.

Ed was very apologetic. He'd decided to take a nap after driving home from Seattle and had overslept. So we made another attempt on Monday morning after carefully planning detours. Ed went first and called me to advise a route revision. The mission accomplished without any problems. It was amusing to see jets of water shooting up through some of the storm drain covers in the middle of the downtown streets.

When I went to pick up Ed on Monday morning, there were little water fountains shooting up through some of the storm drain covers downtown.