Rain, rain never went away
Many times over the course of recorded local history, Downriver residents have been told of major rainstorms which “threaten records,” and the term “100-year event” can also be seen as used to a point of overkill.
While the danger posed by these storms can never be doubted, especially considering parts of the area are built on former floodplains, the event on August 11 went one step further, into the “500-year event” category. It would produce, in fact, the second highest single-day rainfall in history.
Overall, the storm produced a total of 4.57 inches of rain at Detroit Metro Airport, most of it concentrated in a four-hour period. When the storm moved off, Metro Detroit as a whole would suffer $18 billion in approximate damage.
Though cities to our north, such as Dearborn and Southfield, saw as much as six inches, the biggest center of deluge was, in fact, Downriver.
Over 100,000 homes locally would report some kind of flood damage. Much of that was due to failing infrastructure which could not be helped. It was estimated a total of 10 billion gallons of raw sewage overflow would back up into basements.
SEMCOG had reported back in 2001 that an estimated $14 to $26 billion needed to be spent to upgrade the aging pipes & sewers, but most communities could not spend, due to falling city revenues affecting each locale’s bottom lines.
Further fallout in the coming months were the increased dangers of E-coli and other related diseases, plus ever-expanding damage totals.
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