"...a short stretch with water up to the bottom of the windows on my 2T van ..."

wow..That's WAY too deep for me! Did you know it was going to be that deep?

I once tried to go to the store during a rainstorm about 1959, from my apt. on Shadybrook (shoulda been warned by the name), near WSU, and had the engine flooded within a block...the moving water pushed the dead car for several blocks to a slightly higher spot, where I was able to restart it.

Then about the same time..(maybe the same storm) I read in the paper that a HS classmate of mine(a VERY nice guy) had tried to help push a car out of water flowing across Kellog, and been washed into a culvert....they didn't find him for hours.

I have been extra careful of moving water since those days.