Hurricane Irene - Stranded Honda- Federal Road - Danbury Connecticut
One part of our adventures through Hurricane Irene took my wife and I back to check on her parents in Danbury, Connecticut. We arrived to Danbury late Sunday morning and even though forecasters placed the eye of Irene a few miles west of us when we got there much of the damage appeared to have already been done.
One of the sticking points for residents of the suburban New York City metropolis was the flooding of Federal Road. Federal Road is a part of Rte 7 and is a major commercial and economic thoroughfare. However the dips and the waves in Federal Road always make it a prime spot for flooding.
While we were able to access her parents house from the highway, coming down the other side we were not so lucky. We got out of the car and trekked it on foot and were rewarded for our efforts by this pictured Grey Honda Accord. The license plates are from New York State but given Danbury's proximity to the New York State line (Brewster, NY is the next town over) finding cars with New York State plates is not all that uncommon.
This person thought they were smarter than the water and they wound up leaving their car stranded. Maybe the story was that they just didn't realize how deep this pool of water was, but the other pictures attached to this piece show the wide scope of this pool.
Danbury Connecticut is not near the ocean so there were no chances of rip tides or ocean swells. However the fact that this city was carved out of the mountains means that there are a number of dips and swells in the road curvature making sections of Danbury prime spots for flooding.
We headed just past this stranded car and found the popular retailer Stew Leonard's open for business. Even though all traffic coming down Federal Road from the west would have to come up and around to get to him, Stew Leonard's remained open for business on Sunday mid-day.
Of course most of the rest of Federal Road was closed including all the car dealerships, the Starbucks, many of the fast food restaurants, and other boutique retailers. But it looks like Danbury Connecticut was spared the brunt of Hurricane Irene. Now is when the cleanup begins and hopefully, for that Honda Accord; some fast evaporation or a big tow truck so that they can get out of the way.
Good news for the Accord; as we alighted to her parents doorstep the sun poked through the haze in earnest.
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Published by Jesse Schmitt
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3 Comments
Post a CommentGreat job, Jesse. We don't have much flooding where I live, so swimming cars is very uncommon. However, I love the pictures and they really had to the image!
We had floods and creeks swell over on to roadways making it impassible. cheers
Danbury was not carved out of mountains. There were no mountains here to begin with. Danbury was first built over wetland (first mistake right there), and originally called Swampfield. Eventually the population realized that "Swampfield" wasn't a very appealing name for a town, so they eventually changed it to Danbury. The flooding happens because the majority of Danbury still is right over wetland. The water has nowhere to go. Our street always floods whenever there is a major rainstorm, hurricane or no hurricane. When Floyd went through in '99, we had 5 feet of water in our basement and the street was submerged under 3 feet of water at least. Irene was nowhere near as bad, but I still spent nearly 12 hours straight battling the flood water both outside and inside before other people took over (I started at around 2 in the morning, and stopped around 1300).