a local school bus driver replace her car

Hello, my name is Sunny Parker. I run a local non profit and I am helping to raise some funds for Destinee Reigns. She is a local bus driver that lost her car in a flood yesterday in New River, Arizona. Miss Destinee was driving her car on her way home when she got washed away in her vehicle during a storm.

The Fire Department came out to rescue her and today we went out to try to help her get her car out of the wash.

Unfortunately, her car is completely damaged. Arizona has a shortage of school bus drivers so if she can't get to work it will be difficult for children to get to school. We are hoping a local dealership or local person might have an inexpensive car that we can purchase for her. If you are able, any amount will help.

Funds will be used to help Miss Reigns purchase a vehicle. Unfortunately, she only had liability insurance so she does not have the funds to purchase another vehicle. Here is her story …

Let me start by saying this is the hardest post I've ever made. It has taken me a full week to get to a place emotionally and mentally were I can even talk about it. I'll relate facts first. Feelings second.

I drive a school bus now as an "almost old enough to retire" person. I am hyper vigilant about safety. My kids would tell you I drive them nuts always preaching about it. My whole career working on the space shuttle program and then as a journeyman pipefitter has been geared to always consider worst case scenario which of course is that someone loses their life. I am "trained" and ingrained with doing everything possible to avoid that.

So here are the facts;

On Thursday evening August 31st I drove a bus from Anthem to Queen Creek to pick up football players. As their game ended a severe weather alert was issued for high winds and dust with zero visibility. As they loaded, the wind and dust kicked up. I advised my dispatcher and the coach that I would be pulling over if it got too bad. It didn't. As I dropped them off an hour and a half later at their high school, the winds were strong but not severe and only a few drops of rain. 15 minutes later when I returned to the bus yard, it started to downpour. I refueled the bus, parked it, got in my car and headed for home. 2 miles to my house. It was about 10:45pm. Pitch black, no street lights out here in the Desert Hills/New River area, pouring rain. First mile no problem. I'm going slow because I don't know this road very well and can't see a thing. And then it turned really bad.

I hit water. It came up over the front of my car and now I was floating. It turned my car backwards and swept it down a wash. After about 150 feet the car hit a small foot bridge and was held there as the water came up. Then a pick up truck came floating toward me. Well that's not good. It got sideways and got stuck on a tree before it hit me. Thank you Angels.

Long story short, I was trapped in the car until fire and rescue was able to get me out. They considered cutting the roof off the car but no time. And then another small miracle. It stopped raining. The water started to drop. We were able to get a back door open far enough for me to get out.

I never saw this coming. I wasn't speeding or being reckless. I wasn't trying to "cross a wash with water running". I would never never ever try to drive thru water even if it were just a few inches. This water was 5 feet deep. It was smooth and flat and black just like the road. No signage, no reflectors, no warning of any kind.

Next day a tow truck was able to pull the pickup out. They could not reach my car. The amazing Casey Craven tried and ended up breaking his winch, his front-end, and getting stuck too. His beautiful wife pulled him out with her giant 4x4 dually. With the help of Sunny Parker and Arizona Foothills 911, a whole community of amazing individuals and Andy the backhoe guy (he's on 7th St and Cloud if you need any tractor work done), and a 200 foot tow rope, my car was pulled thru two feet of mud back out to the road. It's destroyed . I donated it to Kars4Kids.

Physically I'm ok. Emotionally and mentally I'm still a flippin' mess. No I don't want to talk about it because then I relive it. If you think for a second that it would never happen to you let me assure you, you are mistaken. I thought that too. I thought I was too smart and way too careful for this to happen. I was wrong.

Please don't tell me all the woulda, coulda, or should haves. I roll those around in my head every day, all day long and into my dreams. Please spare me what might have happened. I was there. I got it loud and clear.

Sunny Parker created a GoFundMe to help me replace my car if anyone wants to help. Only had liability insurance on it.