CHARLOTTE, N.C.,None — A Charlotte woman and her three children are thanking a good Samaritan after Friday's floods.
Eyewitness News first saw Mele Tonga riding by in the back of a pickup truck with her children. Not long before, she'd been driving down Chesapeake Drive in northwest Charlotte, and said she was the first to go through a large puddle of standing water.
SLIDESHOW: Heavy Downpours Hit Charlotte, Cause Flooding
"I thought we could make it over because we made it over the first one," she said of the puddles. "But then when we came to this one, we just felt the car like, ‘Uh-oh.'"
She quickly realized she was in trouble and said she couldn't wait for police. She told her children to get out.
Fortunately, William Meadows was driving by and picked them up.
"I have a child myself, and I just saw those children out there," he said. "I just took a chance."
The rain was heavy enough to lift a sewer grate.
It also trapped an SUV when someone tried driving through. It belongs to Keith Streelman's co-worker. He said he hadn't seen flooding like this in more than 10 years.
"It honestly was like I was watching the radar and it wasn't moving," he said of the rain.
Previous Stories: August 5, 2011: Heavy Downpours Cause Flash Flooding
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