When the Water Came for Me

If I have any takeaway from nearly drowning in the flash flood that swept through Ellicott City, Maryland, last Sunday, it’s that reality feels like it’s falling apart around you. Standing five doors down from the apartment I rent above my mother and sister’s kitchen goods store, I watched parked cars weightlessly slide down the street. Water that had been ankle high when I’d gone out to move my car up the street quickly rose to my thighs and, eventually, my waist. A police officer who had been blocking off traffic was standing next to me one second, yards away booking it up the street the next. I ran and banged on doors until I found an unlocked apartment building entrance, next to a cute shop that sells bathbombs and scented soaps. I slammed the door shut and watched transfixed as a wall of water bore down on the other side of two inches of wood and glass.

It only took about two hours for rain to turn Ellicott City from a quiet anytown Main Street into a raging torrent of mud, water, and garbage. I watched the flooding from the second floor of a stranger’s apartment, my hands trembling as sidewalks and store interiors were carried off by the waters. Some of the gutted buildings had been freshly renovated and re-opened as recently as a few months ago. A Buddha head statue from the neighborhood psychic bobbed down the impromptu river as this horrific multi-block bathtub filled and churned and finally drained. Later, after digging through debris and squeezing my way outside, I noticed a little frog hopping at my feet, just as confused by my presence as I was at his.