FEH in Deep water
Well as most of you probably know we had some high water over the weekend. Personally floods don't bother me too much since I always seem to be living on the tops of the mountains and the water would need to get pretty high to get to me......
But that being said.
The water started rising on Friday night. I left work at 5:00, just about an hour before flooding closed the street. The water wasn't too high (maybe 3 inches) and the FEH was doing fine.
On the drive home I almost immediatly saw the first flooded house and knew that the big water was coming. Instead of the normal winter speed of 60 miles per hour most folks were doing 45 or so. I stuck with them. On my way home I go from 600 feet (Ukiah) to 2000 feet and then back to 1100ft (Willits) and finally back to 2000 ft.
Heading uphill out of Ukiah, a section of road that normally closes from landlisdes after a heavy dew, I hit the first mudslide. It was about 4 inches deep (very runny) and I was doing about 20 by the time I hit it. The FEH bogged down a bit and slewed a little sideways, but we made it though. It was not pretty however.
In Willits I encountered some serious flooding just outside the supermarket, which was deep enough to scare off even the lifted truck crowd (I'd say 4 feet in spots). Luckly I was able to sneak around the edges of the pool and get into the store.
After that I made it home ok.
Saturday we had to head to Sacramento to deliever the kids to thier dad. This time the in-town flooding was pretty much gone and the road to Ukiah was ok. Once we got towards Clear Lake (between the coast and the Central Valley) we began to see some serious flooding. Several small lakes (BLue Lakes area) were overfilled and a huge volume of water was over one of the side roads and surging in big standing waves along side the road.
Further on (whitter springs) we came to water crossing our road. Normally this is a large flat pasture, which floods sometimes in winter. With this storm it was a lake from horizon to horizon. CHP was there and the road was open and about 8 inches deep and maybe 100 feet long with a little flow. I was not too happy to cross it, but it seemed like it was safe so we went for it. No problems.
About a mile on we came to a sign that told us the road to the central valley was closed in a spot that could not be detoured around (without going into Napa county which we knew was underwater). We had no choice but to turn around and head back....
This time the water at Whitter Springs seemed deeper, or perhaps I took a worse line. I would estimate at the deepest it was between 18 and 22 inches. It was high enough to cause the back end of the FEH to get a little light and drift a bit. The front remained planted though and we made a really nice spray that went at least as high as the antenna. From there on out the trip home was trouble free (although the boys dad was pretty pissed).
I was not happy to do the water crossings and I did worry about all the wiring and componets under the car, but everything seemed to go ok. Of course I have some fluid changes to do now, but it's good to know the FEH can take it.
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