LIFE: The Great Detroit Flood of 2014

Source

Man what a crazy week we've just had weather wise. If you follow me on twitter you might have noticed me talking about the endless amount of rain we had on Monday evening - the second amount of rainfall ever on record for this area - second to such an event back in 1925. It has come to be known in the world of hashtags as the #DetroitFlood event, and being British well I like to chat weather.

It started raining around 11 in the morning as just a really grey, dull Monday morning. But the four hour deluge didn't start until around four in the afternoon. Deluge to say the least we got about 4.57 inches. Combine heavy rain and overworked water pumps which then broke, and you end up with freeways flooded 14 foot deep with water. Yes 14 feet of it - like in the first image. That junction (the meeting point of I-75 and I-696, probably one of the busiest junctions in Metro Detroit) became the Great Lakes region newest lake. 

Main roads (8 mile, Woodward) to pretty much all the freeways had junctions and mile upon mile under water and closed, with Detroit and pretty much all the lower Oakland and Macomb counties affected. There's so many photographs and tales of people being rescued from the roofs of their cars - over a 1000 were abandoned they reckon, water flooding basements, buses filling up with water and people boating along the freeways - many of which are still closed, two days later, and sadly three people lost their life. 

While half a mile down the road we had a flooded freeway, luckily we came out the other side okay although we did get some funky looking water bubbling up into our basement sinks. But thanks to a very overworked sump pump in our basement we came out fine unlike some of our neighbours who have around 3" of standing water below. Now it took me to moving to Michigan to know what a sump pump was but it's pump used in basements where flooding is regular and where the water table is higher than the foundation of the home - it's basically a fixed feature in these parts and they automatically kick on when the water level gets too high. Still it was a little touch and go - having just brought the house and not knowing how well the pump or if there were foundation issues, we were certainly blessed on Monday night to come out the other side okay.

 
Trying to go about our normal routine on Tuesday was a bit of a challenge, not only with all the main routes Joe could take to work being closed but just being able to get anywhere. With freeways closed, driving over their overpasses to see a deserted freeway at rush hour is super surreal. The above picture was taken at the Dequindre overpass over I-696 on our way home, normally at 4pm on a Tuesday that road would be packed out. Ya know, Detroit is the Motor City, we don't really do public transport, this area is all about cars. Those freeways never stop, yet to be replaced with soil covered roads and cars abandoned here and there, it's eerie to say the least.

The forecasts for thunderstorms and heavy rain on Tuesday didn't luckily add any further issues. It just liked to look menacing as we drove along 9 mile. Doom and gloom. After the great freeze of January and now the great flood, Michigan certainly likes to throw extreme weather at you.