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</font><blockquote>citation:</font><hr /> OK. Now, fast-forward back to present time. All was quiet that Saturday night, July 31st, when I parked my MINI behind my girlfriend Kendra's S2000 on the corner across from where we live. Early the next Sunday morning, around 4 am or so, I was awakened by water dripping everywhere throughout our apartment. Granted, our place is an old converted factory, so parts of it do leak, but all morning I was scrambling to put pots and dishes out to collect new drips. Unusually bad drips. At one point water was running down the walls. Concerned, I peered outside a few times to see just how bad it was raining. It was a near white-out it was coming down so hard. The cars were sitting there just fine. About 6 am, satisfied that all the leaks now had matching containers, I went back to bed. About a half hour later I was startled awake by someone banging frantically on our door. I figured one of our neighbors was probably having a leak problem too. Rubbing my eyes, I unlocked and opened up.
And I could not believe what I saw.
Water everywhere. Our stoop disappeared into murky brown crap. The entire corner was submerged. It was about two and a half feet deep when I first saw it, and was rushing down the side street and across Third like a small river. It went up Third for half a block in both directions, and was flowing angrily down the side street for a few blocks, as far as I could see. I woke Kendra, threw on some shoes, and we both waded out to our cars in disbelief.
When we got out there, every single light on the MINI was on. High and low beams, fogs and turnsignals, every light in the dash. Both windows had rolled down. Water was up to the shifter. The trunk release, radio, window motors and other electronic things underneath the rear of the car were freaking out, making terrible grinding noises. All that was visible of my girlfriend's S2000, which was parked right in front of me, was the convertible top, windows and trunk. Apparently the MINI had floated forward and hit the rear end, because both cars were touching and the MINI was sitting a little sideways.
Now, mind you, this happened on a normal city street corner - not near a river, creek or lake, not at the bottom of a hill or close to a dam... it was just about the last thing I expected to see when I opened the door that morning.
And this happened in the span of half an hour. By the time I had grabbed the camera, the water was already beginning to recede. Two more hours after the photos were taken the rain had stopped, the sun was out and the water was gone. Too much rainwater had accumulated too quickly for the sewers to handle... the car was under maybe a total of fifteen minutes.
Unfortunately, the MCS was totalled. A young 38,679 miles motored. My girlfriend's S2000 was also totalled - she had owned it only 2 months. In fact, just about everyone who had parked on that corner and along the side street had their cars totalled as well. Once water inside a car reaches a certain height (above the seat bottoms), insurance views it as a total loss, as most control electronics are located at or below that level. So despite our efforts and against our hope, the cars were gone.
Well, there is always a brighter side, right? Good news is MINIs really do retain their value! I'll be getting a check for only slightly less than what I paid for the car, and this almost two years and 40K miles later!
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