Here’s another reason. There are rules in Florida (and I assume in other coastal states) about providing storm water runoff ponds in a development. They are designed to capture and slow the storm runoff because all of the new houses or buildings displace open ground where water can percolate through the soil. They also capture the runoff from the roads so the petroleum runoff from tires and oil doesn’t go directly to a bigger body of water.
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And here I was thinking it was just because if you dig a hole in Florida it fills with water.
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It’s such a shame. Those poor folks in Florida don’t know how useful a basement can be.
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In the late 80s - early 90s there was a large push to build more housing on designated “wet lands”. I don’t know if this is one of those, but those that did were required to provide adequate ponds to contain the same amount of water from rainfall. This is the sort of crap they came up with.
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Obviously at least one person did, although he didn’t make it out.
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One more reason not to live in Florida.
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Sure they go outside, but nobody ever voluntarily enters a murky pond. That turf belongs exclusively to the gators.
Important life tip: do not enter an environment where you are not the apex predator, where the chances of encountering the apex predator are non-trivial, and you are not equipped to manage an encounter with said predators.
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I live close to a body of (60%) water; very close.
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You don’t even need gators to have a reason to stay out.
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At first I was hoping they finally found Hoffa. Still, that’s… great news for his friends and loved ones? Closure, at least.
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What’s more, he didn’t just use his drone to check, he activated it!
I feel more like I’m living in a Gerry Anderson SuperMarionation future.
“Activate the pond drone, Brains.”
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Who’s touching these monkeys?
Please, leave these poor sick monkeys alone
They’ve got problems enough as it is
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Came here for this. Was not disappointed.
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Yerse. Goodies activate and baddies release. That’s just the way of things.
(Goodies also inhabit circles whilst baddies inhabit rings).
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That’s Australia out, then.
Even the grass (Oz spinifex) is tougher than me…
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That’s so sad!
So this guy’s just driving around at night along some recently developed wetland, drives a bit too close to the edge of a pond and splash! And it’s all over, just like that. Hopes, dreams, aspirations: nope!!! You drove your car into a pond, sucker! Good night Betsy Lou.
As an avid Mythbusters fan, I probably might have a leg up on that situation, however. If he was unable to roll down his windows before the car went fully under, there’s still a chance of opening a door once the interior has filled with water.
Oh wait, I forgot. Florida. Yeah. Florida. So he was probably both drunk and high, and had accidentally duct taped himself to the steering column as part of a foiled plan to rob all of the Zima from a convenience store while wearing a gorilla mask. Never mind.
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Gotta be in the top ten most awkward ways to find out former residents are stalking your backyard on Google Earth.
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I dunno, it looks like the water level in that pond has dropped. Maybe with a couple extra feet of water, that murky horror effectively hid the car. And given that people probably aren’t walking right up to the edge of the water, and the refractive properties of water, especially when viewed obliquely, I’m not sure the car was as visible as it looks from the sat image.
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You’re probably right. For decades, the flow of ground water in Florida was altered to push water out east and west from Lake Okeechobee (Palm Beach is almost due east from LO) and it was drying out the Everglades to the south. Recently, irrigators have been pressured to push more of the water south, both to help the Everglades and to reduce red tide events where the overly-fertile ground water from orange groves and other agriculture meets the ocean to the east and west. So water levels in the area have probably dropped a bit.
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