Just want to share an unpleasant island experience in light of the possible heavy rain forecasts. Hopefully they won’t materialize but jic……..

A few years ago we met dear friends at Mark’s for dinner. It had rained much of the afternoon but had stopped by dinner time so we went ahead with our plans. About half way through dinner the heavens opened up again and it started to pour once more. Never having been on island and out and about in that kind of weather we had more or less an attitude of ‘how bad could it be?’

We soon found out. Traveling in that storm was a HUGE MISTAKE!!

We finished dinner and even though our friends offered us their hospitality overnight our thoughts were more or less how bad could our trip back to BSV possibly be?!

It was possibly one of the worse experiences of my life and after the fact my DH echoed the same sentiments.Water was streaming down the main road and I came to understand how a vehicle could easily get washed off the road and add to that, the rain was causing debris to stream down the hillside and land in the roadway. Fortunately the only large boulder we encountered had come to a full stop before we got to it. But there was unbelievable amounts of mud, small rocks and other debris all over the road. Had we an inkling of what we were getting ourselves into we would definitely have stayed with our friends.

And then we had the decision to make at the bottom of the rotary- should we take the normal road back to Simpson Bay and deal with the areas that always flooded or take the road that would ultimately lead us to the causeway? Neither was a great option but we ended up heading toward the causeway. It was seriously flooded out and we literally prayed our little white Corolla would get us through the deep waters and safely back home. We actually had rainwater coming into the car. Sorry,
Lesley, but no real harm done.

Throughout all our trips to the island we had NEVER experienced anything quite like that and for sure, we NEVER will again.

If the rains happen in that magnitude, please stay safe!