Standing water on the road can be a big driving hazard. Not sure about the image of water standing, but we’ll leave that for another time.
At the end of fall we had one of those weeks where we got too much water for it to have anywhere to go. It rained and rained and rained, and the storm drains just could not keep up. They become full of whatever sticks and leaves that had been sneaky enough to escape the vigorous rakes of New England neighbors. Little streams flowed down any sort of a downhill coming together in larger and larger rivers flowing freely across roads, sweeping up more debris as they went. Windshield wipers were on “frantic mode,” sending little splashes off the edges of the windshield, adding to the raindrops. There was a muffled hum of rain dulling the rest of the sounds. My poor country music was not to be heard today and chit-chat was kept to a minimum as concentration was required and it became hard to hear the people in the backseat.
Staying centered in the lane became secondary to trying to stay out of the deep end of the lakes forming. We crept closer to the higher ground in the middle of the canted roads. Headlights bravely tried to make us visible to the oncoming cars since even in the daylight, it was difficult to see. We were vigilant in watching the road and doing our best to navigate the situation. Our eyes were so focused on the road itself and the water that it wasn’t until the last second that I saw our mistake.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted colors in all the gray water that made the rain and road look like one big splotch. There was a woman. Despite the cold, she was wearing shorts and rain boots with a t-shirt plastered to her. She had something long and skinny in her hands, and the drops momentarily cleared just enough to make out that she had a rake and was trying to clear out the storm drain at the bottom of the not-usually-there pond in which she was wading at the bottom of the hill. I started to warn my student driver to notice her and give her some room, with my all purpose word that comes out when I don’t have time to explain, “Careful!” before I understood what was about to happen. She looked up as we approached and opened her mouth as if to speak, knowing we could not hear her from inside our nice dry car. Just then tires closest to her hit the edge of the puddle she was standing in.
It was one of those slow motion moments where a tsunami type wave of water from our tires seemed to flow straight up from the ground and crest right over her, stunned open mouth and all. A gasp came from all of us in the car as we realized what we had done. Having no recourse, we all laughed in that way you do when you don’t know what else to do, knowing it was not really funny of you were her. We hadn’t actually done anything to her since she was already soaked to the bone, but boy did we feel bad!
So, to the nice lady out there in the pouring rain, trying to to do your civic duty by clearing the storm drain in front of your house who got extra soaked by a drivers ed car, (I’m sure you know who you are,) we are truly very sorry. We didn’t see you until it was too late, and we still feel really badly about it.