"The water reached the windows": Family stuck for 4 hours in a car due to flooding

A family from Ma'ale Adumim, while driving to the city on Saturday, became trapped in a significant flood inside a tunnel following a sudden downpour. Despite the intense heatwave prevailing across the country, the tunnel was completely submerged, requiring police intervention to extract the family from their vehicle. Officers arriving at the scene identified the immediate danger and acted to rescue the parents and their child through the car windows.

Over 25 mm of rain in August is a rare event, having occurred only three times in the past.

"The tunnel was completely flooded, and we were stuck there for four hours until they arrived to collect the car," a resident of Ma'ale Adumim told N12. "I was with my wife and child. After the police rescued us, I sent them home because my wife was in a state of extreme stress."

He criticized the maintenance of the site, describing the drainage efforts: "The tunnel is completely broken. There is a drain meant to clear the water, but the holes were clogged. They dealt with it like in the Stone Age; at one point, a municipal worker arrived and started cleaning it with a stick."

"The moment we arrived at the scene, we realized it was a life-threatening situation," explained Captain Daniel Israel, head of the investigation department at the Shalem station.

Captain Israel described the operation: "We entered the puddle with a police jeep, approached the family's vehicle slowly and carefully, and rescued them through the windows onto the roof of their car, and immediately after that, onto the hood of the patrol vehicle."

Israel added that the officers used a safety net on the vehicle's windshield to allow the family to hold on during the rescue. The family gripped the net, and the officers drove carefully in reverse until they were extracted in a safe and secure manner.