Raining in Detroit - Expressways and Homes Flooded

[Gistok]

I'm just curious about those cement structures along certain stretches of the freeways. Are those pumping stations for keeping the roadway drains to continue draining, or are they for when an underground waterway crosses the freeway and needs to continue deeper in order to cross the freeways, and then pump the water back up to higher ground after going under it.

I am reminded of the Chapaton Drain that runs under I-94 at old 8 Mile Rd. in St. Clair Shores... and remember an old post about it having pump thru cement silos next to I-94 there.

[Gistok]

OK, I found this video on pump stations/lift stations...

[Honky Tonk]

Rainfall so far this year for Las Vegas: 1.1 inches. But it's a dry rain.

+5 !

[Lowell]

I've been outed. So here are the details:

"Sundown" | Acrylic on Canvas MicroPointillist | 60x48 inches | 150 x 120 cm | Collection of Henry Ford Hospital System | Lowell Boileau 1989

This just popped up on my Facebook feed as a share:
Lowell Boileau
"When the expressway age arrived, and Detroit carved up its metro to accommodate the new routes, it was determined to place large sections of them below ground level. It had the benefit of neighborhood noise reduction and visual advantages--out of sight, out of sound. Sadly the drainage solution in downpour situations has never been adequate as has been shown once again this week as over a thousand vehicles were reported submerged in flooded expressways."

[MikeM]

Agreed, no one is to blame. But someone is responsible. To wit, there are elected or appointed commissioners who at the very least have the responsibility to come forward and state the obvious, that the pumps are shitty and old and prone to fail and to propose solutions.

I don't think we can say "someone" is responsible, yet. We don't know what happened at the pumping station. It has been upgraded over the years and it might not have been something old [[or shitty) that failed.

However, we do know that the city got more rain than ever recorded in its logbooks; it got nearly a summer's worth of rain in a few hours. More than twice the June monthly average and twice the previous record daily rainfall record in the month of June. That far exceeds 10-year, 1-hour storm design standard, so pump failure or not, the city might have flooded anyway.

[ABetterDetroit]

MDOTs funding in Michigan has obviously fallen straight through the political cracks. Nobody wants to pay for it, maintain what we have, and upgrades are far and few. Pumping water is not rocket science but still needs to be paid for getting maximum efficiency for the public investment.

Continuing to pick rock bottom bidders with little oversight and inspections for construction and maintenance gets you garbage that you still paid for. Want something that works. Start in the beginning with a master plan that states goals for a project with a lifespan and the needed maintenance to keep performance high. Pick the bidder who has the best chance of meeting all the goals and then have a legal enforcement plan to financially go after contractors who fail on the requirements of the job.
It’s not complicated. They do it all over this country with success just not here for some politically ignorant reason. I have heard from the road industry for decades that the inspection process here is a joke.

The ‘No government’ mentality has serious drawbacks that greatly effect whether businesses want to operate here and if people want to live here.

[Gistok]

And here I thought that the rain storm of the century was on August 11, 2014... but apparently not... for Detroit/Dearborn!

Just change Reuther Fwy, this image, with the Ford Fwy, this weekend.

To me it becomes mind boggling... 1000 cars flood damaged in Detroit...

[Lowell]

Amazing images and personal stories in this piece. This simply has to stop and soon. The whole drainage situation in Metro Detroit is a long-running inexcusable mess. It keeps happening over and over again, flooded expressways, flooded basements, flooded homes. Hopefully the infrastructure bill being negotiated Congress will offer some start on this.

[Lowell]

I'm starting to think the Metro Detroit needs a Flood Czar to design and lead an immediate and comprehensive solution to this mess. This is just unacceptable and heartbreaking.



Perhaps the Grosse Pointes with their considerable clout and influence could lead the drive. I learned from a good friend there that his basement got four feet of water -- just three years after having it completely restored from a previous flood.

[Meddle]

This stuff was so common in the 60's that we had 4' pipes we screwed into the floor drains in the basement.

[Danny]

2 Chronicles 7:14

King James Version

14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

[ct_alum]

On a related note, our EEV basement flooded early Saturday morning and Mrs. Alum lined up at 5:30 a.m. at the Harper Woods Home Depot to purchase some sump pumps. When the doors opened at 6:00, it was bedlam. She had her items in the basket and a tall white guy in his 30's came up to her, mumbled something and started taking her stuff out of the basket!
All 5'-6" of Mrs. Alum grabbed her stuff back, pushed the guy in the chest and he ran off. Unbelievable.

[Danny]

I have built my ark ya'll. High and dry up here.

[Jimaz]

This stuff was so common in the 60's that we had 4' pipes we screwed into the floor drains in the basement.

That just shifts your flood water to your neighbor's basement.

To truly solve the problem for everyone, we need more retention basins. The cost of retention basins needs to be weighed against the cost of flood damage that seems to be happening with increasing frequency.

There are now reports of trash pickers salvaging sewage-soaked refuse from the curbs. Welcome to America.

[MikeM]

I'm starting to think the Metro Detroit needs a Flood Czar to design and lead an immediate and comprehensive solution to this mess. This is just unacceptable and heartbreaking.

Perhaps the Grosse Pointes with their considerable clout and influence could lead the drive. I learned from a good friend there that his basement got four feet of water -- just three years after having it completely restored from a previous flood.

I think the residents of the Pointes have the economic means and freedom to vote with their feet and move to drier ground, especially as this is the third time for some. They are already beginning to point fingers and view it as a "Detroit" problem. After successfully suing their own governments in the last decade, a lawsuit against DWSD or GLWA will be filed any hour now if you believe them.

On a related note, I can't believe how much crap people keep in their basements. It's astounding the junk people hang on to. Bad junk, tasteless junk. The layers in the landfill from 2011, 2014, and this year will fascinate future archaeologists.

Also, I never realized how many "restoration" companies existed. If you and your buddy have a truck and a trailer and a wet vac or pool pump, make up some business cards and go rake in the money. A neighbor got a quote from ServPro of $3500-$5000 to do nothing but pump 2.5' of water from her basement. No hauling out debris, no washing or cleaning - just pumping water to the street.

[Zacha341]

AMEN to that on multiple levels beyond this recent heavy rain!

2 Chronicles 7:14

...If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

[GPCharles]

Every single time, it's the failure of the Conner Creek pumping station.

It lost power - GET A BACKUP GENERATOR!!!

2011, 2014, 2016 and now 2021. Except for 2014, it's been every 5 years.

[Henry Whalley]

...then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

The residents of Windsor may have been heard because it appears that city didn't have much flooding this year, or it may have been the $50 million that city council devoted to water infrastructure a few years ago. Such devotion!

[jcole]

We have retention basins; they're called expressways....
Kidding, kidding. But in essence that's what they acted as this weekend

[jcole]

I used to work for TransUnion/Floodzones and we did flood maps for FEMA. One of the requirements for a community to qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program [[NFIP) is adequate amounts of retention basins. For every sidewalk, street, cement pad installed in an area, the possibility of flooding increases and they are required to compensate with basins and other forms of relief. If they don't, FEMA doesn't pay up. With climate change, they need to re-evaluate those flood plains.

[Gistok]

Every single time, it's the failure of the Conner Creek pumping station.

It lost power - GET A BACKUP GENERATOR!!!

2011, 2014, 2016 and now 2021. Except for 2014, it's been every 5 years.

I take it you have no idea how much generator capacity would be required to pump hundreds of millions of gallons of storm water? They would have to build an addition to their pumping station, and spend many many millions to get the backup system and keep it at the ready.

[MikeM]

Every single time, it's the failure of the Conner Creek pumping station.

It lost power - GET A BACKUP GENERATOR!!!

2011, 2014, 2016 and now 2021. Except for 2014, it's been every 5 years.

First, how do you know it "lost power"? It's possible, but who makes this claim, other than anonymous GP city administration tweeters? Still trying to find a primary source for this claim.

Second, they do have emergency generators. Several of them.

Third, Connor Creek wasn't the problem in 2011, 2014, or 2016. 2011 and 2016 were strictly Grosse Pointe's own fault as determined by testimony in the court cases they lost. Maybe time to tax some billionaires to update the ancient infrastructure in the Pointes?

Last - and most important - the rainfall exceeded the design standard used to determine the necessary capacity of the facilities. If everything ran flawlessly, you still would have flooded basements.

[Henry Whalley]

The ‘No government’ mentality has serious drawbacks that greatly effect whether businesses want to operate here and if people want to live here.

Agreed. And that mentality isn't entirely ubiquitous. To quote Monty Python:

“You know, there are many people in the country today who, through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of them became sane later in their lives.”
Rev. Arthur Belling Graham Chapman

[MikeM]

I used to work for TransUnion/Floodzones and we did flood maps for FEMA. One of the requirements for a community to qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program [[NFIP) is adequate amounts of retention basins. For every sidewalk, street, cement pad installed in an area, the possibility of flooding increases and they are required to compensate with basins and other forms of relief. If they don't, FEMA doesn't pay up. With climate change, they need to re-evaluate those flood plains.

Quotes from the 2011 lawsuit against Grosse Pointe Farms:

...Arbour and Van Liere expressed that the City’s failure to design the Inland system with a CSO constituted another defect. “A CSO,” Arbour explained “provides an outlet, or a point of release, when a sewer system is overburdened and surcharging. The excess flow is then released to a body of water or a retention pond.” Without a CSO, he continued, excess flows back up into homes or basements. Arbour expressed, “In my opinion, it is a design defect to design a combined sewer system without access to a CSO.” He further asserted, “In my 49 years of experience in the area of wastewater treatment, I have never seen a combined sewer system that did not have access to a CSO.” He concluded: “If the City’s system had a CSO during the rain events in May and September, the Plaintiffs’ homes would not have flooded.”

Van Liere likewise averred in his third affidavit: “The lack of a CSO or retention basin in a combined sewer system is very rare and leaves little room for error when it comes to pumping a sufficient volume of sewage.” In Van Liere’s view, a pump station lacking a CSO bears a“heightened responsibility” to otherwise handle incoming flows.

Arbour reiterated that a CSO would have prevented the September basement flooding. He further contended that the [pumping station] should have been staffed during the September storm, given the problems that had arisen in May and “because it knew it had a documented lack of capacity and it knew that it did not have a CSO for any excessive flow that would have resulted from a rain event.”

[bartocktoo]

On a related note, our EEV basement flooded early Saturday morning and Mrs. Alum lined up at 5:30 a.m. at the Harper Woods Home Depot to purchase some sump pumps. When the doors opened at 6:00, it was bedlam. She had her items in the basket and a tall white guy in his 30's came up to her, mumbled something and started taking her stuff out of the basket!
All 5'-6" of Mrs. Alum grabbed her stuff back, pushed the guy in the chest and he ran off. Unbelievable.

I live in Harper Woods and go to that Home Depot all the time. I know several people that work there. This did not happen. But stay racist.