It was pretty bad.
Certainly the worst fourwheeling situation I've ever been in and short of someone getting hurt it couldn't have gone any worse. It only lasted 12 to 15 minutes from the time we went in to when I swam to shore, including one failed attempt at winching.
It happened on a ranch where my coworkers and I were monitoring the effects of the storm. We only have stock Toyota trucks for work with no winches so we took my Disco. The spot is an improved "Arizona crossing" with a concrete bottom. We drove 2/3rds of the way across in about 2' to 3' of water and then all of a sudden we became a submarine. It's possible the concrete had blown out and we just drove right off the end. I still don't know. Maybe we just hit a wall of silt that caused a deep eddy? It was raining and the current was very fast and strong and the water level was rising as soon as we stopped moving. The truck stalled out and started filling up with water. I jumped out the window into the upstream of the river and was pinned against the truck. The water was about 40 degrees and large logs were coming down the current and hitting the truck. I wanted to work my way around to the front to get to the winch but the current was too swift. I climbed onto the hood and told my coworkers to climb out the passenger side windows onto the rack. The truck was shifting a little and wasn't quite stable. I was worried it would go with us in it. The hood was already under water at this point and I was on my knees reaching down to freespool and get the line out and the remote hooked up. By then the interior was filled to the bottom of the windows. My female co-worker dove off and swam about 15 feet upstream to the closest tree while we short-roped her. I threw her the winchline and she bubba clipped it around the line (all the recovery gear was underwater in the back of the truck). I couldn't get back in to steer so I just stood on the hood and tensioned up the line to try to anchor the truck. It broke immediately somewhere near the drum. At that point with no running engine, no winch line and the water coming up the windshield it was time to go. I got back in the river and went around to the back of the truck to open the rear door and grab their packs and my bug-out bag. We hauled those to shore and then we short-roped my other co-worker and he dove in and swam out. I was the last one off the island. It was tough to leave. From there we hiked a few miles out to get picked up. All of our cellphones died in the swim but the HT in my pack was fine.
That night the river got really high. Apparently it was all the way up to the roofrack. It has since stopped raining and the sun is out so the water is dropping. Tomorrow the forecast is clear so we go back to see if we can carefully get it out. The truck is ****ed but at least if it comes out cleanly a lot should be salvageable.
