It's probably a good thing I picked it up, too 'cause we needed it to get crossroads to escape Holland. We headed to dinner at the Holland IHOP around 9pm in blinding rain. Lynn decided that I'd be the one to drive us home, since it was just chaos with light flooding across some of the roads, including US-31.
The IHOP is next to the Felch Shopping Center (yep, that's it's name!) and the parking lot to the shopping center had easily a foot of standing water in some spots. I talked Lynn in to driving through them, but it took some convincing.
By the time we finished dinner, the rain had let up. The US-31 off-ramp at Byron Road was completely closed, and for good reason. There was probably 5 foot of water under the bridge. We headed toward downtown Holland hoping to find a way back home (heading in the wrong direction, but hoping to find a different way to get back to I-96).
We pulled over into a parking area to pull up a map on the iPhone, then made our way to College, then to 16th street.
That was an incredibly B-A-A-D decision. What should have been a quick 10 minute turn, head north, turn, head home instead turned into a good 45 minutes of heavy traffic and heavier water. Holland was UNDERWATER (we didn't hear any news about it until we got home and checked MLive).
At one point, we headed down a desolate 14th Street to find a way around some other jackassery that was going on at a railroad crossing. We quicky found out there was a reason it was desolate... While the near end was just a couple inches of standing water, it was 3 feet deep at the other end.
Let me just take a moment here for two observations:
- One, the FJ Cruiser ROCKS in deep water. We cruised right through every flooded street with no trouble at all.
- Two, my wife SUCKS in deep water. She completely and totally lost it in panic. I think she may have been wheezing at one point from the panic.
We're cruising through the deep stuff at MAYBE 5 mph, headed toward the end of the street. Lynn is telling me to turn around. It's a two lane road with cars parked on each side. Forward is the only viable direction. I think I explained that to her patiently, but I can't be totally sure about that. I know in my head I was screaming "WTF good is that going to do?!" At no point did those words ever escape my lips.
Near the end of the street, there were two abandoned cars in the road. One facing in each direction. These people... they're compact cars, how did they think they were ever going to make it?! Even with 9" of ground clearance and 36" of water clearance (the air intake sits high in the FJ), I got a SLIGHT bit nervous that we'd be paddling with our arms out the windows to get out. We plunged on, weaving between the two dead cars and making a right-turn toward higher ground.
The truck had no problems. The engine never skipped a beat and all four wheels pulled us through without a thought.
We finally got around the deep stuff and headed toward higher ground, finally made it back to 16th Street and crossed US-31 (yeah, right back where we started). From there, it was easy.
After going through the deep stuff, I was totally giddy. If Lynn hadn't been in the car, I'd have gone back and gone through a few of those streets again, just for fun. Laughing like a school girl the whole time.
I LOVE MY TRUCK!
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