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The Flood Never Comes from the Crick

The Flood Never Comes from the Crick

Last updated on: August 23, 2026 at 11:04 pm by Mary Pezzulo

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The Flood Never Comes from the Crick 2026-08-23T23:04:21-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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flood water racing through a valley.

image via Pixabay

I thought the flood would come up from the crick.

There’s a road I like to travel on, when I finish running errands up near Wintersville. This road is in a little gully between two wooded shale hills. There is a shallow stream of water zigzagging through culverts on one side or the other of that road, all the way back to downtown. Jimmy the mechanic knows places where that stream is so deep, it forms a swimming hole, but it’s only a few inches of water at the bottom of a four foot ravine near the road. In down state West Virginia, where my ancestors came from, that type of stream is called a run or a line, and they use them to mark the boundaries between one family’s farm and another. Here in Northern Appalachia, a run or a line is called a crick.

The road by the crick is beautiful to drive on in the fall, when all the trees are in bright colors, and in Spring when trilliums bloom on the ground. In winter I drive that way on purpose after a good freeze, because all the little trickles of water down the shale turn into glare white icicles, a palace of ice. It’s shady and lovely in summer as well. But it wasn’t wise to drive near the crick with a storm rolling in, because I’d heard it’s prone to flash floods. There’d been a flash flood warning nearly every day this August.

Most years, the end of July and the beginning of August are the droughty part of summer. But this year we’ve had rain day after day. Every time the world threatens to dry out just a bit, it rains again: not just a drizzle but a torrential storm, with bright lightning that tears up the sky and wind that blows over my sunflowers. They say it’s climate change and we’re all doomed.

I had just been to the library and then finished my grocery shopping. I knew a storm was blowing in within the hour, but it wasn’t raining yet. I decided to drive home by the crick, instead of down the main road with all the traffic, because I thought it would save time. I thought I’d be back before the rain even began, with no danger of flash floods. I drove behind the old mall and across a parking lot so worn with potholes it might as well have been the surface of an asteroid. Nobody in town knows who to blame for those potholes. The City can’t fix them because it’s private property, not a municipal road. The police don’t know which property owner to ticket for the safety hazard, because the mall keeps getting foreclosed and sold from one developer to another, all far away in different states where people have money. Now the mall is condemned because it, itself, is sinking like one giant pothole, and the structural issues are severe. Jimmy says it’s because the whole hill is riddled underneath with the remains of coal mines. Sometimes the earth just gives way.

I was just barely beyond the potholes and on the back road, when the rain began, an hour early. And there was nowhere to turn around.

It started with a few big drops and quickly escalated to a downpour. A big flash of lightning burst right overhead, followed instantly by a shock of thunder. I flipped on the headlights and the wipers, and inched forward. All the time, I watched the crick to the right of me, because I thought that’s where a flash flood would start. I thought the crick would rise past its banks and engulf the road.

A few minutes more, and I could barely see the yellow line in the middle of the road. Every bit of paving was covered in sludgy yellow water, but the depth of the crick hadn’t changed. Another minute, and I realized where it was coming from. The sudden torrential rain had turned the shale cliffs to the left of me into a series of cataracts. All the little cracks in the layers of rock, which made such beautiful icicles in winter, were bleeding muddy water. And there was nowhere to get off the road and wait for it to stop.

No one had ever taught me what to do at a time like this. No driving lesson ever covered a flash flood at all, let alone a flash flood cascading down from a cliff. I had no idea what to do except keep driving.

Thunder and lightning split the sky, right overhead once again. The wipers weren’t quite making the road ahead visible enough. The road goes slightly downhill until it meets with downtown by the Ohio river, so the water on the road was getting worse. But the crick didn’t overflow its bank. The water kept flowing down the side of the hill. The crick stayed where it was.

By the time I got to the bottom of the gully, the rain was coming down in sheets, the road looked like a river of its own, and there was STILL nowhere to park safely until it was over.

I should have gone to the very middle of the road and straddled the place where the yellow line ought to be, because it seemed the shallowest place. But I couldn’t, because there was an SUV twice the side of my car going the opposite way. I was inching slowly downhill, and the SUV was barreling quickly up. There was no room. The only way out was through. I whispered a prayer and hit the gas.

Remember when I told you that autistic people sometimes repeat the same word over and over for fun? We also sometimes start repeating the same word or phrase over and over when we’re terrified. I found myself repeating “FLOOD car. FLOOD car. FLOOD car!” under my breath as I plowed through a deep puddle I couldn’t possibly avoid. The SUV passed me, not slowing at all, kicking up a backwards rain of flood water that temporarily destroyed all visibility. I was certain the car would die or be run off the road, but somehow, it didn’t. The puddle went on for the length of a city block, and then I was out again. The car was fine. I was shaking.

I got through the old railroad tunnel where the road turns slightly up. And then I was downtown, where there are gutters and sewer drains that actually work. I made it to the parking lot of the Carnegie library, where I parked and sat shuddering until the rain stopped.

I got back to LaBelle as the sky cleared and the sun came out, turning the water to mist steaming off the grass. Jimmy came to inspect the car. The weight of the water in that gigantic puddle had somehow knocked a piece of the fender loose, but it snapped back into place. The engine was unhurt. That weak spot in the seal where the rain leaks in was soaked, so I’d better get some carpet cleaner to stop the mildewy smell, but other than that, the car would be fine.

“I thought a flash flood just meant the crick would overflow!” I stammered.

“Oh no,” he said, in his Northern Appalachian accent that sometimes makes ordinary phrases sound cryptic and mysterious. “The flood never comes up from the crick. It always comes down the mountains. Happens every year.”

It’s almost September. We’re supposed to have five full days without rain this week, though I wouldn’t plan on it.

Every time I think I’m used to the foothills of Northern Appalachia, something happens to remind me that I’m not.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

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