A drive to work became a swim to safety for one man.

Jody Chesson, 53, who commutes 33 miles to his job at the Goodyear chemical plant in Beaumont, got an early start on Thursday, knowing the heavy rain would slow him down. “When I left Bridge City about 3:30 in the morning, it wasn’t that bad,” he said.

Driving a lifted 4-door Jeep Wrangler, he kept his speed to 25 miles an hour, he said, and did not have too much difficulty with the wet spots on Highway 69. But when he got to Beaumont and took the ramp onto Interstate 10, he got in too deep almost before he knew it.

“It was immediate,” he said. “I put my brakes on, but it was at the hood. By the time I stopped, it was over the hood.”

He tried backing up, but the engine died. “Water was just gushing in,” Mr. Chesson said. He could not open the driver’s side door, but he managed to get out on the passenger’s side and climb onto the roof of the Jeep. He called 911 from there, but was told no one was available to help him right away.

“I decided, I’m not going to just stand put,” he said. So he left the Jeep and set out for a nearby hotel, the Elegante, walking when he could and swimming when he had to. He said he was glad he had thought to grab his work bag from the Jeep, because it had a flashlight in it, and his phone charger.

The hotel still had power, and others had taken refuge there as well. When water began to flood the lobby, he said, they climbed the stairs to higher floors because the elevator could not be used.

Much too late, Mr. Chesson then found out that he could have just stayed home: Goodyear sent out a notice at 7:30 a.m. that it was canceling his shift and closing the plant because of flooding. Stuck at the hotel, he got himself a bag of popcorn, he said; by early afternoon, he had half of it left.