Arsalan Hakimi, 67, lived in Reston, Virginia. He had become a pizza deliveryman to occupy himself after retiring. Last Thursday, his boss stopped deliveries when warnings of flash floods were broadcast. Hakimi then said he was heading to Great Falls, a wealthy suburb, to visit his grandchildren. He never got there.
Hakimi had worked for the Central Bank of Iran and came to the United States in the 1980s with his wife and children. He and his wife Shokouh became US citizens. Hakimi spent much of his time playing tennis, his son-in-law, Bijan Moazzami, told The Washington Post. Hakimi’s wife lived part of each year in Iran. She was there when her husband was killed last Thursday.
On that day, Hakimi’s daughter, Tina, told her husband of flooded roads near their home and messaged him to park his sports car in a shopping center and wait for her to pick him up in their much heavier SUV. She got her husband home safely. A few hours later, as the flood waters surged faster, her father’s car was swept away.
A woman walking her dog sighted Hakimi’s body about 6 p.m. that evening. His Toyota Yaris was carried away by the water and swept into a creek. Hakimi apparently got out the car. It was found not far from Hakimi’s body with the door sheared off, police said.
Jim Moran, the regional director for Domino’s Pizza in Northern Virginia, sobbed as he spoke about the man he called “Big Al.” “You have to get across what a special guy he was,” Moran told a Washington Post reporter.
“I have a couple hundred employees and he stood out” for his enthusiasm and work ethic during at least six years as a driver. “I just can’t imagine how scared he must have been. Oh, God, that is hard to think about.”
Moran said Hakimi often drove to Great Falls to see his two grandchildren, 12 and 14. Moazzami, Hakimi’s son-in-law, said Hakimi was “a very athletic person, very fit, and I never saw him angry, never heard a foul word from him. I never heard him say anything bad.”
Three other people died in the flash floods that same day in the Washington suburbs.
