Story Time: BOV/Daily Driver saves the Day

After over a week of continuous heavy pouring rain today it finally stopped. I’ve seen tropical climate rain before but nothing like this, non-stop pouring followed by “what the hell the sky is falling”, followed by more pouring rain.
In spite of this, this past Saturday morning I still had to drive to town to pick up a delivery. After checking the news and making sure there was no flood alert I thought “hey, the worst that can happen is getting wet a bit”.
Not so much. The slope on the side of the road had collapsed, dirt and rock had been washed over the road, and by the time I made it back I was dealing with more flooding, a fallen tree and the road going home up hill was turning into a downfall river.

The humble Honda CR-V saved the day though. AWD, snow+mud tires and the extra torque of the diesel engine meant I could climb up the road that was now becoming a river slowing down in the opposite direction. As it turned left, it was surreal to see the well-known road home now flooded, with a fallen tree across the street, the trunk almost fully under water. It seemed like a completely different place.
I don’t know how close I got to getting washed downhill. The current was pretty strong. A bigger truck would have done even better no doubt, but then again a bigger truck would have probably been left in the garage because I wasn’t expecting any of this.
The lesson is pretty clear: SHTF happens without notice and more likely than not your daily driver is what you’ll have to work with. Its better to drive around the small or mid size SUV all day than to have a Humvee in the garage while driving a Prius all day because its good on gas.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.