Tuesday a week ago it was a "gully washer" and then some. It was the day we had so much rain, the creeks all flooded, and there were so many high-water rescues that most went unreported in the media.
 
I don't mean to sound like an old-timer and I'm really not but we've been here long enough to see most of the open land near us change from fields to lawns. The bridges across Rowlett Ck worked fine, unless it rained. Seeing Blackburn Rd (now Campbell Rd) closed between Brand Rd and N Garland Dr was never a particularly uncommon sight.
 
Driving my son to school that morning last week, it was impossible to miss the fact that most of the Firewheel golf course was flooded and Rowlett Ck was already very high. I also noticed that Campbell Rd had been barricaded — no surprise there.
 
The Council work session and meeting started early that day, about 5 p.m. Afterwards, I chose to use Lavon Dr to return home. It would give me a chance to see how high the water was near the Town Center and I could check a few other spots, too. Near the Town Center, even it the dark I could tell the creek was a football field wide, or more.
 
On Murphy Rd, at Campbell, I encountered a Richardson emergency vehicle headed toward the creek. I followed at a distance and watched as they moved the barricades so they could proceed. From Brand Rd I could see lots of flashing lights at the water's edge and several more emergency vehicles. Much further west, across to the other edge of the creek, were more vehicles with flashing lights.
 
I was curious but it was no place for a suit-clad spectator. I drove the short distance home where it was high and dry.
 
That wasn't the case for the crew at Fire Station 10, off Brand Rd and Provence. They were in the thick of it, up to their necks, literally.
 

A young couple had driven past the barricades in the dark and driven into the water. Dirty, brown, swift water. Now I'm going to sound like a Mississippi riverboat captain but remember that "old-timer" reference above? The creek makes several S-turns as it makes its approach to the bridge. The bridge is at the furtherest western edge of those turns. When the creek rises, it skips the turns and goes straight through the area. The couple in their new Durango managed to get through the main portion of the water even though it was several feet deep. They even made it across the bridge, thanks to hydrodynamics. The water below the bridge was rushing through like water from a firehose but was relatively calm above because concrete railings block much of the fast water. By the time they tried to ford the last section past the bridge the water was getting much faster and higher. They were quickly swept from the road.
 
Anywhere else, they would have been tumbling like a big blue boulder and there would have only been a recovery operation. If luck can be measured in feet, they had a couple feet of luck left. A line of native trees that bound the golf course literally strained them from certain doom. They climbed out of the SUV onto the roof.
 
The crew from Station 10, led by Captain Doug Attaway, with assistance from other Garland and Richardson units, staged a rescue. First, they determined the couple was probably in the best possible situation, held back by the trees. The preferred method would be to walk the victims out. With the water still rising, they tried to reach the vehicle twice by wading but the current was too strong, too cold, too dangerous. Wading is preferred because the odds get longer if you have to switch to a raft. There was no choice this time.
 
Rescuers were eventually able to reach the couple by taking the raft downstream behind the trees and approaching from that direction, using the calmer currents behind the trees and the SUV, and the stability of the trees, to their advantage.
 
Here's a suggestion. It might save your life. Don't drive around the barricades. Don't drive into the water! If you're a city slicker and don't know that SUV's are just little boxes with big, leaky holes, that happen to have four wheels, don't drive into the water even if you have seen it on cartoons and at the movies!
 
Here's another sign you might be a city slicker: After you're rescued, you blame everyone else by saying the barricades weren't all the way across the road and that the city did not light the area well enough for you to figure out how big a fool you really are. Future hint: If you can reach through the window and touch the water, it's not a puddle.
 
When our young couple received a ticket for driving around the barricades, they decided they needed a defense. You just read it.
 
Once again, I'm so thankful for the Fire Station here in north Garland. All of us old-timers are thankful everytime there is an emergency or fire. Of course, we old-timers won't be driving through high water.
 
My hat is off to the crews from Station 10 and the able assistance they received from all the other personnel that put their lives at risk for this extremely dangerous swift water rescue and for their success. We sincerely appreciate this job and all the others you do on our behalf, youngsters and all!