About 7 p.m. Thursday, a pickup plows through a low section of Queen Avenue west of Geary Street.
After a couple of days of rain, driving around the Albany area was a little tricky on Thursday evening. Flooded sections were not easy to spot in the wet and black December night.
Law enforcement in the city and both counties posted dozens of high-water warnings online. But unless drivers paid more attention to their phones than the road ahead, they might have missed those announcements
It’s not that easy to see high water at night, especially when your wipers are doing their best but still don’t guarantee a perfect view of the road that disappears into blackness ahead.
One place the Albany police alerted drivers to was Queen Avenue near Oak Street. That’s west of Geary Street, where Periwinkle Creek comes out of the long culvert that takes it under the intersection of Geary and Queen.
As far as I could see, the canal was near bank full at about 7 Thursday night, but it did not appear to be overflowing on the street. The water that covered the pavement might have been the result of drains that couldn’t handle the volume.
Some drivers going west on Queen made U-turns ahead of the flood. Others plowed right through. Nobody got stuck during the few minutes I stood there and watched, after making a U-turn myself . (hh)
The story has been edited to correct a mistake. (See Matt’s comment below.) It is, of course, Periwinkle Creek that runs under the Geary/Queen intersection. But it wasn’t any map that is to blame. It was a brain short circuit.
Headlights coming the other way helped make the water on Queen Avenue easier to see.
That isn’t the canal. It’s Periwinkle creek that flows below the intersection of Queen and Geary. The map in the phone is incorrect.
That’s correct. That was a dumb mistake for someone who often writes about the Periwinkle Creek Bikepath.
Thanks, Hasso, for the high water info and the pictures.
I don’t think the rivers and creeks crest until Saturday so heads up!
I also attempted to drive through (unseen) high water at the corner of Castillo and Conser in Millersburg on Thursday evening. My car stalled, but several excellent and kind-hearted neighbors came to the rescue, sloshed through the water, and pushed my car forward out of the small lake and to the side of the road. I can’t thank them enough.