BALTIMORE, Md — You weren't getting very far without rain boots in parts of Fells Point on Friday after Tropical Depression Debby rolled through Baltimore.
"It took me 20 minutes just to walk 5 minutes from my house," Kathleen Deleonibus, who lives on flood-prone Aliceanna Street, told WMAR-2 News on her walk to a pilates class Friday morning.
Maybe not the best conditions for walking, but paddle boarding? Ron Howard says - bring it on.
“I keep this blow-up paddle board in my car for the beach. We had an employee that had to get home so I just paddled her across the street from our office to here,” he told reporters while balancing on his paddle board in the flood waters at the intersection of Wolfe and Thames Street. “I’m just trying not to go flying in the water on camera right now. It’s like 50% fun, 50% terrifying.”
For people who live near the harbor, this is par for the course.
"I saw somebody earlier walking through the water over there, just like casually. I think people that live in this area are used to it, honestly," Julia Palomino said.
"Oh, this? It happens all the time, yeah. I woke up this morning and the street was completely flooded, I was like ugh. It gets like this all the time," Deleonibus said. "I do wish we had better systems in place."
Although it's more of a common occurrence in this area than other parts of Baltimore, that doesn't lessen the blow for business owners. Carlos Cruz owns Chilango's Mexican Grill on the corner of Wolfe and Thames. He can't even get into his food storage area to see what kind of damage Debby left for him.
“We’ve seen this before, but I think this time was worse," Cruz told WMAR-2 News. “Business has been real rough. We’ve been battling the heat a lot so we can’t have outside seating and then a lot of rain through the weekend and now we have this, but it’s Mother Nature. We gotta deal with it.”
A few doors down, the owner of Charm City Plastic Surgery had to reschedule her patients for the day. That meant margaritas at Chilango's, which stayed open throughout the day.
“Actually at 8 a.m. I came in this morning and it was still low. I went to a meeting at the coffee shop and we came back and it was 2 feet higher," Dr. Emily Clarke-Pearson said. “I’ve been in the neighborhood for a long time and this is about as bad as it gets, hopefully.”
High tide was at 10:30 this morning, and the water continued to recede throughout the afternoon.