I have just returned to my desk after piloting the Spider Monkey around town to take photos of the soggy destruction. After the jump, I bring you her work — plus the story of how she saved my life.
After getting some shots of Turtle Creek, we headed down to the Trinity. On the Continental bridge, Spider Monkey leaped out of the car to shoot the river looking east. A white pickup truck filled with construction workers stopped and asked her if we needed help. I swear she almost got into the truck with them.
Then we started looking for a way to get onto the levees. I know a spot near the DART tracks, off Industrial on the north side of the river. The gate was locked, though. Spider Monkey said she knew a place on the Oak Cliff side where we could get on. I’m pretty sure she was lying. But after driving around for 15 minutes — the rain coming down in sheets, Spider Monkey trying to photograph lightning after it had struck — we found an open gate near the I-35 bridge. And just like that, we were on the south levee.
The part about the homeless guy under the I-35 bridge I mention only because once he gave chase, we figured it would be in our best interest to drive in the other direction, east on the levee, toward the Corinth bridge. Which is what we did. All the time, Spider Monkey was doing her best to surreptitiously turn up the heat in the car to the point where my eyes would dry out. All women are lizards. But I’m off topic.
If you’ve never been on the levees, each is topped by a loose gravel-and-dirt road. As we approached the Corinth bridge, the road headed down the side of the levee, into the river basin, and under the bridge. It was at that point that I felt her Toyota Matrix start to fishtail. I think I said, “Whoa, this road is getting really soft.” Water draining off the bridge overhead created an almost solid curtain of water that made it hard to see the road conditions under the bridge. Spider Monkey turned up the heat. And I drove us into a mud bog.
Panic. Swearing. I put the car in reverse and gunned it. The front wheels threw mud everywhere, but we didn’t move. More swearing. We assessed the situation. I said, “We are stuck!” She said, “This car is stuck!” I said, “We are effing stuck! In this car!” She said, “And it’s flooding! We are on the inside of a levee that the Army Corps of Engineers has declared unsound, and the river is rising!”
At which point she hopped out of the car and started trying to push it backward. Listen, I felt bad that she was getting wet and muddy, but there was a reason I was picked as the wheelman, right? Someone has to drive. She pushed. I worked the throttle. The Matrix made angry noises. Mud flew everywhere. But no movement.
I rolled down the window and half-heartedly suggested that I get out and help. “No!” she said. “I’ve got it!” I turned the air conditioner on. Spider Monkey began gathering rocks and throwing them under the front tires. She strained against the hood while I turned the radio to KERA to see who Krys Boyd had on the show. And we moved — about 4 feet. Just enough to get us under the water cascading down on us from the bridge, about 50 feet over our heads. When cars drove by, they sent more water splashing over the bridge and down onto us — and when I say “us,” I really mean “her.” She later said it felt like she was being water-boarded.
One of our co-workers has already yelled at me for making Spider Monkey do the pushing while I sat in the car. Man, all I can say is, she wanted to do it. And I really am a better driver than she is.
Okay, so at this point, I started to imagine what the future held for us. Clearly we’d need a tow truck. But could we get one down into the river? Would the cops need to be involved? Surely they had more pressing matters to deal with.
While I was thinking things through, Spider Monkey was busying herself with more rocks under the tires. I rolled down the window again. “Hey, really,” I said, “I can take off my loafers and help.” Again she refused.
I’d say it took 20 minutes. But she finally pushed us out. Once the car was moving, I didn’t want to risk getting stuck again, so I gunned it in reverse, all the way back up to the top of the levee. Spider Monkey sprinted after me, in the rain, her boots heavy with mud. What a trooper.
I took the picture you see of her (scroll down) right near the top of the levee, just after she’d unstuck us. For the rest of my life, I will regret not taking a photograph of her through the front windshield as she was pushing the car, with the water from the Corinth Bridge raining down on her.
Wanna know the best part? Just as we were getting back to the gate that gave us access to the levee, city workers were shutting and locking it. If it had taken us 30 seconds longer to get out of the mud — by which I mean if it had taken Spider Monkey 30 seconds longer — they would have locked us in. We would have been trapped in the Trinity. No doubt the homeless man, though, would have been thankful for his new Matrix.
As I look out my office window, it is now sunny. It’s almost like it didn’t happen. Could it all have been just a horrible dream? No, because we have pictures. From top to bottom: Casa Bellamini, on Turtle Creek, had a swim-up porch; a couple and their in the Stone Bridge neighborhood had a look at the flooded bridge and decided to head the other direction; workers cleared a tree on Turtle Creek; Spider Monkey says this shot doesn’t tell a story, but I like the clouds, so I’m putting it up; the first rule of being a good wheelman: always remain calm. the second rule: always remain in the car; Spider Monkey’s shutter is faster than lightning; how’s that bridge construction coming?; our water-logged hero, right after she got the Matrix out of the mud.
