Off the beaten path

Here’s what can happen when a huge amount of rain causes flash flooding. A reader sent this photo of a car in the Upper Long Branch Stream between the cul-de-sacs at 6th Street and Glen Forest Drive in Bailey’s Crossroads. 

The reader suspects someone from the Glen Forest pool, about a quarter-mile upstream, must have driven through the fair-weather crossing while it was flooding and was washed downstream.

The Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management urges people to not drive through flooded roads, “even if you have a vehicle with high clearance and even if the water appears to be shallow.” What people should remember is, “turn around, don’t drown.”