Taking the water with some class

The latest five days of nearly non-stop rain have brought back memories of storm seasons past for many of us.

Who can forget the routinely flooded roads seemingly every other weekend during the 2004 storm season.

And following that was the 2005, otherwise known as the Year of Wilma the Witch, when rising water did a lot more damage than the winds, and much of that damage was done to vehicles that were parked in low-lying areas as the rising salt water inundated engines.

After many of those storms, our streets were partially flooded for days, with deep puddles standing in some of the most inopportune of places, those places being somewhere we needed to drive on a regular basis.

But this rain storm has been different. For one thing, we’ve seen nearly 18 inches of rain fall on the Keys in just five days. We didn’t have that much rain when Tropical Storm Fay passed through as wet as it was.

And with the heavy, nearly non-stop rain, have resurfaced the deep puddles in the most inopportune of places.

Low-riding cars have had to either slow down to a virtual crawl or risk stalling in the middle of the puddle.

Some higher-riding vehicles, obviously folks who weren’t here for the storm-tossed seasons of 2004 and 2005, were taking the puddles at full bore, unaware that the water, even though it looked shallow, was in some places nearly a foot deep.

Those drivers tossed water for several feet, and I even saw a few lose traction and start to twist in the current they created by hitting the puddle at too high a rate of speed.

After the third day of heavy rains, most drivers had come to the realization that creeping through the puddles was less damaging to both machine and driver and traffic all over the islands began to slow.

But the rain continued, and the puddles rose in depth.

I was glad to see that there were some brave souls who didn’t allow the weather to disrupt their normal routine.

Such was the case earlier this week as I was driving to work down Key Deer Blvd. Traffic was moving slowly, spitting gallons of water to the sides of the road only to have it flow right back into the travel lanes, making absolutely no dent in the depth of the puddles.

We build roads around here to crest in the middle so that rain water, and the occasional storm flood, rolls aside and leaves somewhat clear travel lanes, albeit smaller.

If the water isn’t high enough that it completely covers the road, what that leaves us is a clear path, usually spanning both lanes, right down the middle of the street.

If there is only one vehicle in play, most of them drive right down the middle in the clear path. If there are two vehicles in play, they slow down so as not to drown each other when passing.

But what happens when you add a bicyclist to the equation? And that bicyclist is using the clear path down the center?

If you’ve been around a while, you stop until the bicyclist has passed and then plow through the puddle. But if you’re a visitor, or a short-timer with no experience in these types of conditions, you do what these two did.

One car headed south. One car headed north. One bicyclist headed north riding the yellow lines in the middle.

It was a recipe for disaster that luckily didn’t happen, unless you’re the bicyclist who suffered some bad luck at the hands of….how do we say this nicely….non-thinking persons.

The southbound truck, riding high, slowed down maybe 10 miles per hour, which resulted in water plumes only eight feet long instead of 12 feet long. The bicyclist couldn’t get far enough out of the way without riding through water nearly a foot deep. He got drenched, although he did try to squeeze as far right as possible to avoid a soaking.

Rather than wait for the bicyclist to take his pounding and move out of the zone, the northbound small SUV just moved right and gunned around the biker.

Of course, that made sure that the bicyclist got another soaking from the opposite side as soon as the first one was over. His last-second attempt to move left was thwarted by the miniature waves kicked up by the truck that had passed earlier.

But moving left was a good idea for the biker since the small SUV lost traction and its butt end kicked over toward the opposite travel lane, where the biker would have been if he hadn’t moved left.

The puddle was about 10 yards in length. The time it would have taken for the biker to clear the puddles and avoid the soaking was minimal. Once clear of the puddle, both vehicles could have passed the center-riding biker without incident.

But they couldn’t wait. Hence the road-crud shower.

But the bicyclist showed a lot more restraint than I would have even though he wasn’t entirely blameless. He didn’t fly a single single-digit salute.

I was amazed by that.

Awed in fact.

I would have had to fly one.

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