Looking for content…it found me first.
Be careful what you wish for.
I’ve been busy lately and haven’t been able to keep the content updated as much as I’d like, I apologize to those of you who have been returning frequently for content that hasn’t been there. But I guess they say better late then never and this post really exemplifies that.
I had been looking for content and having missed the perfect opportunity earlier in the day due to an equipment problem I was really itching for something to photograph. I didn’t think it would find me first.
I was in New Hampshire again this past weekend for work as usual. During the evenings I like to spend time with my friends, we were all going to go to the movies to see Inglorious Bastards by Quitin Tarentino (It was great by the way). It had been lousy weather, it rained for about two hours; I found out the next day it had rained between 4-5 inches in that time. I was about a mile down the road from my house, on the way to pick up my friend Travis. I had gone through two large puddles that covered the road without incident, it was in the middle of third charming one that I realized my car wasn’t going to make it.
Halfway through the water was over a foot deep, I was very lucky the road wasn’t eroded below the surface! My car died and was stuck. The other cars behind me were far enough back to have learned from my mistake and they stopped. I looked left and what I saw was a waterfall, cascading over what had once been the embankment of the road. I realized I had to get help fast or I might lose my precious 1996 Subaru Legacy!
The emergency people arrived about 5 minutes after I had gotten out. As I am quoted in the Union Leader Newspaper “a man in a truck pulled me out with a rope.” This has caused some confusion as people are approaching my father and asking if I’m OK. The paper made it sound like “I” was pulled out, when rather it was my car, which was merely stuck. I was running from house to house asking people if they had any ropes or chain, but nobody did. A man who had seen me get stuck and had immediately stopped to help was the one who finally produced a small rope which he doubled up and I tied to the bottom of my car. I steered as he used his truck to pull my flooded wreck from the inundated highway.
You can see how deep it was from the picture above. Large trucks could make it through but I wouldn’t have suggested that they try, by this point the road could have been gone beneath the surface.
The emergency crews had to close many roads off for the evening because there was so much damage. On another main road that intersects with the one above There had been a landslide and half the road was inaccessible. I passed it that evening but the police wouldn’t let me stop to take pictures. I suppose I could have but it wouldn’t have been worth arguing with the officer.
THE NEXT DAY
The aftermath of this weekends rainstorms is still being resolved. State crews are still having to keep roads closed so they can work on them. You can see how extensive the damage was from the pictures below. I was driving home the next day and I parked my car and was able to take pictures for about 10 minutes before traffic began to move again.
It was the worst flooding I’ve seen on this road and the most traffic, I beleive that people just wanted to get out and see the damage after reading about it in the paper.
As I parked my car a state vehicle tring to back up drove off the curb of the road and became stuck. It was rather funny seeing it all happen. I took some pictures for you to see it as well. They used a tractor to pull it out.
After seeing the site where my car had almost been washed away I drove further up the road to see some of the other washout. They had one man on a tractor fixing about 50 yards of the road. I returned later though and there were more workers there. The damage was much more extensive then I had initially thought most of the embankments were completely gone and many driveways were completely ruined.
I hope you enjoyed this post! I will certainly try to update the content more often and keep you all coming back. Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions of comments please email me at hjamesphotos.gmail.com or leave a comment if you prefer! Thanks and have a good on =)
