X

Drain the swamp: Scary DC flooding spreads to the White House

Elevators, parking lots, streets and Metro stations were underwater due to Monday's storms.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper

The Washington, DC, area on Monday was deluged with heavy rain, which turned streets into rivers and led to closed roads and stranded drivers. Water also seeped into the White House basement. 

The National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency, and CBS News reports that "the storm dumped about 6.3 inches of rain near Frederick, Maryland, about 4.5 inches near Arlington, Virginia, and about 3.4 inches at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in a two-hour period."

The flooding was deep in the streets outside the National Archives building, which had to close Monday. The site's official Twitter account said the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and other valuable records stored there were not in danger.

The weather led to some frightening images of water flooding elevators, Metro stations and parking lots.

The White House didn't go untouched. Several journalists posted photos of water leaking into the press space in the White House basement, which naturally led to plenty of jokes about presidential leaks and swamp-draining.

Unnerving photos and video shared to social media showed just how deep the water really was.

The situation was serious, but it being DC, jokes, of course, were inevitable.

At press time, transportation officials were warning of a bad evening commute ahead for Washingtonians.