South Carolina Woman's Honda Floats Away in a Flood. When She Finds It, She Has Multiple Parking Tickets

"So you don’t have a boating license either."

Photo by: anna.brooks4 & Chris Gallagher

By: Chad Swiatecki

Sep 3, 2025 at 1:00pm ET

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In a city underwater, major infrastructure may fail and sputter, but parking enforcement will still collect its money. That’s the lesson one soaked Honda owner learned in Charleston, South Carolina, where floodwaters carried her car into a handful of tickets, and some TikTok fame.

The viral clip from Anna Brooks (@anna.brooks4) shows her grey Honda sitting in tire-high water during a downpour as she expresses outrage over the parking tickets handed out while Charleston experienced more than 11 inches of rain over three days last month.

“My car floated here. I did not park on this (street),” she says, clearly frustrated by the situation.

Her video has 7.5 million views as of this writing.

Charleston Floods By the Numbers

Brooks may have had a good reason for her disbelief. A stalled cold front dumped massive amounts of rain over the South Carolina lowcountry between Aug. 22 and 24, creating flash floods, road closures, and stranded vehicles. Several Charleston-area locations saw rainfall totals exceeding 11 inches, with Mount Pleasant recording 12.10 inches, North Charleston 11.84 inches, and the West Ashley area 11.41 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

The flooding was worsened by high tides and overwhelmed drainage systems. On Aug. 23, the National Weather Service issued a coastal flood warning for Charleston County, warning that the 9:04 p.m. high tide would lead to prolonged street flooding, especially in low lying areas like downtown Charleston and the crosstown.

As water filled roadways and seeped into buildings, it appears parking enforcement officers were still patrolling, or perhaps paddling through the chaos.

Can a Car Really Float Into a Ticket?

Though it might sound like an excuse ripped from a stand-up routine, Brooks’ explanation is more plausible than it seems. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration both note that it only takes 12 inches of water to float a small car. A Honda Civic, like the one in the video, falls squarely within that category.

Fast-moving floodwaters can displace vehicles, sweeping them away from driveways or curbs and depositing them in unlikely locations, like active traffic lanes or, as in this case, restricted parking zones.

Similar scenarios have played out across the country during flood events, such as those in Houston during Hurricane Harvey or New York during the remnants of Hurricane Ida. While cars being swept away can be tremendously frustrating and expensive, getting a parking ticket afterward adds a layer of bureaucratic insult to physical injury.

Despite the unusual circumstances, it appears the City of Charleston didn’t exempt flooded vehicles from its revised parking enforcement policies. While the city’s parking enforcement is operated by civilian employees, not sworn officers, tickets are still enforceable under city ordinance.

Many municipalities do not automatically void citations issued during extreme weather events unless there’s a specific policy in place or an official state of emergency is declared. In Charleston, no such weather amnesty has been announced as of this writing.

Whether Brooks chooses to contest the citations in court remains unclear, though many viewers urged her to do so, including at least one person claiming to be an attorney.

The flooded Civic may eventually dry out, but the incident raises broader questions about the inflexibility of local enforcement during natural disasters and how communities strike a balance between fairness and bureaucracy.

As climate change increases the frequency and severity of urban flooding, scenes like this may become more common. Cities may need to rethink how they treat stranded drivers, not just as potential violators, but as victims of circumstance.

Until then, it appears the best defense for a floating car is… a good TikTok caption, a little legal Latin, and the court of public opinion.

Viewers were quick to rally behind Brooks, with equal parts sympathy and sarcasm. Her clip, which has racked up hundreds of thousands of views, became a springboard for some of the internet’s finest flood-themed one-liners.

What do you think?

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Comments

Here are some standout comments from the clip that capture the mood: