It was one of the most striking images of Tuesday night’s flood: a streetcar stuck under a tunnel as water levels rose inside it, above the seats, threatening passengers.Merissa Tse, animation editor at Brown Bag Films, was among a half-dozen passengers heading west on King St. W. at about 11 p.m. when the streetcar failed to push through the flood of water under the bridge just after Sudbury St.“I started noticing water gushing up from manhole covers,” said Tse, describing how the streetcar operator slowed down and hesitated before deciding to proceed through the tunnel. “I’ve seen this place flood before and so I was thinking, like, this is not a good idea.”Minutes after being stopped, the streetcar operator assured passengers everything would be fine and that he was calling emergency services for help.Tse and other passengers had already started noticing water flowing inside the streetcar. At first they thought it was “funny” and just kept moving through the car, snapping pictures to post on social media.Read more: Toronto reeling after rain, flash floods wreak havoc Tuesday night with more showers on the wayEverything you need to know to prepare for Toronto’s next flash floodBike journey through flooded Toronto offers glimpse of the future“But then water kept getting higher and higher, and it got really scary. I think I had a panic attack,” she said, noting one of the other passengers calmed her down.“At some point we were trying to balance ourselves on the very top of the seats. Everybody was screaming.”By the time the water reached her chest (she’s about five feet, three inches tall) they couldn’t take it any longer and had to find a way to get out, she said.The operator and one other passenger eventually managed to push open the front door and “we all had to dive in,” she said.Outside, Tse said she was able to keep her head above the water and hold her ba ...
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