If your car is stationary in rising water, abandon it and walk to higher ground with your dog on a leash. If it is already being swept by current or filling with water, the order is: your seatbelt off, an upstream window open or broken, children released, then out, onto the roof if you cannot reach dry ground. The dog comes out with you or right behind you. The escape sequence below comes from published authorities; no source covers a dog, so the dog advice is labeled as the editorial desk’s reasoning. The step that makes all of it unnecessary is never driving into floodwater in the first place.
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The Prevention Case, Stated Plainly
The National Weather Service’s Turn Around, Don’t Drown program exists because the numbers are stark. Citing CDC data, the NWS states that over half of all flood-related drownings happen when a vehicle is driven into hazardous floodwater. Walking into or near floodwater causes the next largest share. The program’s core line is not a suggestion: “It is NEVER safe to drive or walk into flood waters.”
The water-depth thresholds back up why the instinct to “just push through” fails so often. Per the NWS: six inches of fast-moving water can knock over an adult, twelve inches of rushing water can carry away most passenger cars, and two feet of rushing water can carry away SUVs and trucks. A dog does not change that math. A car with a dog inside floats and gets swept exactly the way a car without one does.
Every step below exists because that first line of defense failed, a road looked passable and wasn’t, water rose faster than expected, a route flooded behind you with no way to turn back. This page is what to do next, not permission to skip the prevention step above.
One version of “faster than expected” has nothing to do with the forecast at all. A dam failure sends a flood wave down the same valley a road often runs through, on a schedule set by the structure rather than the rain, and it is the scenario our dam failure and flash flood evacuation guide is built around, including how to find your own flood wave travel time before you are the driver in this section.
Two Different Situations, Two Different Answers
Not every “car in floodwater” moment is the same emergency, and mixing them up wastes time you don’t have.
If the car is surrounded by rising water but is not moving and is not filling with water inside the cabin, the NWS gives a direct answer: abandon the car and move to higher ground if you can do so safely, rather than waiting to see how high the water climbs. This is the easier, lower-drama version of this emergency. Leash your dog before you open the door, exit, and walk to higher ground. Don’t wait for the water to reach the doors to decide.
If the car is already being swept by current, floating, or filling with water inside the cabin, waiting is no longer an option and the calm exit above is off the table. That’s the scenario the rest of this page addresses.
The Escape Sequence, Sourced Step by Step
For an actively sinking or moving vehicle, the clearest authority sequence comes from an unexpected place: 911 dispatch protocol. In 2013, the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch’s Vehicle Submersion Subcommittee built a four-step self-exit process, later approved by the Fire Council of Standards and folded into the Fire, Police, and Medical Priority Dispatch Systems used by emergency call-takers nationwide. The order is:
- Seatbelts off. Yours first. If it’s jammed, it needs to be cut, which is the second job an escape tool does.
- Upstream window open or broken. Try the power window switch first. Per AAA, power windows typically still work for roughly the first minute after a vehicle enters water, so attempting the switch costs you almost nothing. If it won’t respond, break a side window, aiming at a corner, where AAA notes the glass is structurally weakest, not the center.
- Children released from restraints, oldest to youngest, according to the IAED protocol.
- Out immediately, and onto the roof if you can’t reach dry ground, per the same protocol, which recommends staying on the roof and waiting for rescue unless the vehicle itself starts moving with the current.
A separate rescue-training source, Lifesaving Resources (built around the work of water-rescue trainer Gerald Dworkin), frames the same four actions slightly differently: seatbelts, windows, children, go, with children released as their own step before exit rather than folded into it. AAA’s consumer-facing guidance compresses it further into a “stay calm, unbuckle, roll down or break windows, exit” sequence that treats sending children out first as part of the exit step itself rather than a separate numbered stage. All three agree on the core order, belt off first, window before door, don’t wait for the cabin to fill and equalize. They differ only on whether “get the kids out” gets its own numbered step or rides inside “exit.”
Why the upstream window, specifically. The IAED’s reasoning, per the AEDR Journal’s review of the protocol, is that if you lose your grip exiting into the current, upstream, the water pushes you back against the car and you can try again. Exit downstream and losing your grip means the current can carry you away from the vehicle before you’re clear.
Timing. The AEDR Journal review states a vehicle can begin floating in as little as 14 to 24 inches of calm or slow-current water, and that a vehicle in deep water can fill completely within 3 to 8 minutes. That’s the whole window you have to complete the sequence above.
Don’t wait for the cabin to fill. AAA is explicit that the idea of waiting for pressure to equalize before opening a door is dangerous advice: pressure does not equalize instantly even once a vehicle is fully submerged, so waiting means holding your breath through an already-compromised plan. Exit through the window, not the door, and don’t delay for equalization.
If you’re disoriented underwater, AAA’s guidance is to look for bubbles and follow the direction they travel, since bubbles rise and will show you which way is up.
Where Your Dog Fits: Reasoning, Not a Sourced Protocol
None of the sources above name a pet. What follows is the editorial desk’s own reasoning applied to the sourced sequence above, and it is labeled as reasoning because it is not sourced guidance.
Your seatbelt comes off first, not the dog’s leash or crate latch. The IAED protocol puts your own restraint first for a reason: you can’t help anyone, dog included, while you’re still buckled in. Every second spent on the dog before your own belt is off is a second the water is rising.
Loose beats latched, in this specific scenario. Everyday car safety runs the opposite direction: a secured crate or buckled harness is the right call on a normal drive, because it prevents a dog from becoming a projectile in a crash or bolting into traffic at a stop. A sinking car flips that logic. A crate door with a stiff latch, opened one-handed, in the dark, possibly upside down, with water rising, is a real chance of running out the 3-to-8-minute window the AEDR Journal describes before you get the dog free. A dog you can physically grab, small enough to lift and push through a window opening, is more likely to exit with you than one you have to unlock first. No rescue organization has published this tradeoff for pets, so treat it as the editorial desk’s reasoning from the sourced human timing above, not as sourced guidance.
Exit together through the same window if you can manage it, dog first if you have a free hand and a controlled grip, otherwise right behind you. The IAED protocol releases children oldest to youngest specifically because older children can help move faster once out; a dog doesn’t have that judgment, so treat “dog then you” as the move only when you have a firm hold on the dog and a clear path, not as a rule to force in a chaotic exit.
A leash is a liability in the water, not a safety net. Once you’re both out and swimming or being swept by current, a leash that snags on a door handle, a headrest, or debris can hold a dog against the vehicle instead of freeing it. If you can slip the leash off once you’re both clear of the cabin, do it. This mirrors the same logic our flood pet preparedness guide covers for floodwater generally: a dog on a leash in moving current is in the same danger you are, and current can defeat both a leashed dog and the leash itself.
Every escape tool AAA tested in its 2019 study, spring-loaded or hammer-style, worked the same way against a car window: it shattered tempered glass. That same test of six tools (three spring-loaded, three hammer-style) found four broke tempered glass successfully, with spring-loaded designs outperforming hammer-style ones, and found that none of the six broke laminated glass. Laminated glass is layered tempered glass with a plastic interlayer, and it’s increasingly common: about one in three 2018 model-year vehicles used it on at least one side window, largely because federal standards pushed automakers toward laminated glass to reduce occupant ejection in crashes.
That means the tool in your glovebox might be useless on your actual car, and you would not find out until the moment you need it. AAA’s fix: check the bottom corner of your side windows for a small label marked TEMPERED or LAMINATED. If there’s no label, call the manufacturer and ask. Some vehicles mix glass types across different windows, so check each one you might actually use as an exit, not just one and assume the rest match.
| Glass type |
Escape tool works? |
Where you typically find it |
| Tempered (most side windows) |
Yes, per AAA’s 2019 testing, with spring-loaded tools outperforming hammer-style |
Most side windows on most vehicles |
| Laminated (windshield, and a growing share of side windows) |
No, per the same AAA testing; none of the six tools tested broke it |
Windshields on virtually all vehicles; roughly 1 in 3 2018-model side windows |
If your side windows are laminated, an escape tool will not get you out through them, full stop. Our pick is a spring-loaded keychain tool, for tempered glass only. Your plan has to shift toward exiting before water reaches window height, or toward a tempered window elsewhere on the vehicle if one exists. This is worth checking on a dry afternoon, not something to learn for the first time mid-flood.