Toyotas can't swim

On Thursday of last week, Chicago was hit with two lines of pretty serious storms, including some tornadoes, heavy wind, and serious rain. Many Chicagoans are still without power (110,000 as of this morning).

We never lost power, but we may have lost a car.

We haven't been driving our Toyota Echo for the last couple of weeks because Claudia and I work so close to each other and have been riding together. So, our Toyota was sitting at home in the parking lot of our building during the rain. Claudia and I got home around 6:15, right at the end of the second line of storms, and found our car sitting at the deepest point of the flooded parking lot.

The picture on the left is of a neighbor's car that was not quite as bad off as ours. I moved our car before taking a picture of it, but the water was probably about 6 inches deeper where our car sat than it is where this car was. When I got in our car to move it, there was at least 2 inches of water inside the car. The picture at the top of the post is of another of our neighbors moving her car. Our car was in between her car and the gold one you see in the background.

We've called our insurance company and it looks like they are probably going to "total" the car. They said that if the estimated repairs exceed 33% of the value of the car, it is considered a total loss. Unless they somehow decide that it doesn't need anything more than new carpet, I'm guessing that the car will be totaled.

This is a picture I took of the inside of the car after I moved it. The water has drained, but you can see the wet carpet to get an idea for how much water was in there.