Epic flooding...

So, everyone ok with the flooding last night?

We're fine in Washtenaw county- but driving into work, Dearborn Hights it mostly underwater.

And it's far from the headline flooded area here.

Everyone ok?

All mile roads, i.e. 13 Mile, etc. are now River roads. So for those traveling in Detroit, 13 River road and Mound are closed due to flooding.

In all seriousness, I hope everyone is OK.

I blindly jumped in the car this morning and was listening to a podcast not the radio so was unaware of the isses. A guy who works for me called on my way in he was unable to get in. 94 was closed, 696 was closed and he couldn't get to Dearborn from the upper East side. Southfield was closed North bound at 96 and Southbound at Ford so I had to get off there and was stuck for a bit. Our admin who lives South gave up after an hour as well and went back. The parking lots were very empty a couple of hours ago, but people are starting to get in now. I hear GM told people to stay home.

As usual my sump pump free basement is dry as a bone and my culvert is empty, but people 3 houses away have ducks swiming in their front yards. I just have this freeky plot of land with awesome drainage that stays bone dry no matter what.

Well, Adrian, the Ford campus is dry and open.

....

....

Too bad that the entire way to get here is flooded- to the east, Southfield Freeway, south (same) Pelham Road, west- Dearborn/Dearborn Heights, north, Southfield freeway.

Incredible.

All of us who came from the west via 94 had an easy drive until we got to Pelham. 30 min to get 35 miles, 60 min to get 2.

Worse than most snow storms, since you don't normally worry about flooding and killing your car.

Honesly can't imagine the damage to the north of us. 696 had a portion of an on ramp collapse. And then dig under the service drive.

This is going to take some cleaning up. At least the snow melts. The mud doesn't.

alfadriver wrote: Well, Adrian, the Ford campus is dry and open. ....

alfadriver wrote: Yup, I've been here a couple of hours

.... Too bad that the entire way to get here is flooded- to the east, Southfield Freeway, south (same) Pelham Road, west- Dearborn/Dearborn Heights, north, Southfield freeway. Incredible. All of us who came from the west via 94 had an easy drive until we got to Pelham. 30 min to get 35 miles, 60 min to get 2. Worse than most snow storms, since you don't normally worry about flooding and killing your car. Honesly can't imagine the damage to the north of us. 696 had a portion of an on ramp collapse. And then dig under the service drive. This is going to take some cleaning up. At least the snow melts. The mud doesn't.

Well there's still some water downstairs in PDC. I hear it was the equiv water to 40" of snow in one night.

I'm northwest of town, luckily high and dry. Co-worker lost his car to rising waters in Royal oak though.

Gearheadotaku wrote: I'm northwest of town, luckily high and dry. Co-worker lost his car to rising waters in Royal oak though.

Seriously? No E36 M3!

It rained hard here in Flint. Many roads were flooded. The BF Goodrich KDW tires on the RX8 are really good rain tires, I tested them last night.

Fenton wasnt bad. About 3" of rain, but my basement didnt flood, so my ghetto fix held up.

So, was this worse than the 7+ inches in a morning for the communities just south of Indianapolis a few years back?

In reply to yamaha:

dunno- I didn't pay attention to that. Maybe, since it's in the middle of the metro area instead of the edge of it. Maybe not because I've only heard of up to 6.5" fell locally.

But the flooding I saw on my way to work was pretty bad, and this isn't the bad area of flooding.

Damn, SWMBO's parents are both from Dearborn Heights and they still have a bunch of family in the area. That's wild, closing a highway...damn.

We had heavy rain most of the day out in Livingston County, but nothing like what some of you folks experienced. I honestly had no idea you needed an ark to get around on the east side until we turned on the 11 o'clock news. They said that the intersection of 696 and 75 was under something like 13 FEET of water.

Ade, I almost texted you, but I figured you'd hear by morning.

In reply to alfadriver:

Ahh, nope.....not worse than Edinburgh's 11 inches of rain in 7hrs back in '08. But still, its remarkable to see that stuff. Stay safe people.

Lancer007 wrote: Damn, SWMBO's parents are both from Dearborn Heights and they still have a bunch of family in the area. That's wild, closing a highway...damn.

How about closing ALL the highways? 75, 94, 23, 96, 696, all closed plus lots of surface streets?? That 7" of water that some saw was the equivalent of almost 6' of snow!!

Our house is pretty near the epicenter. Lots of soggy trash lining the roadways here, with all major highways under feet of water. I took Woodward all the way in to Detroit, and it took about twice as long.

All my neighbors have 3+ feet of water in their basements. Like Adrian my sump-pump free basement is somehow bone dry. So thankful.

The Leaf traversed a shallow bit of water on the commute home yesterday and is no worse for wear.

Here in Huntington Woods was pretty horrible. I had sewage up to the third step in my basement and I spent all of today throwing stuff away.

They send SCUBA divers along the flooded freeways looking for people trapped in cars!!! What the heck?!?!

Here are some examples of how bad it was on the interstates

That yellow sign is a 14'6" clearance under the bridge

Divers came in to see if there were cars submerged

Holy shnikeys

I thought this was going to be another "I don't understand carburetors" thread.

Holy crap!

How often does this happen? This should dry out just in time for winter.

In reply to Hasbro:

The Detroit metro area has been having freaky weather lately, last winter was the harshest on record, broke the all time total snowfall. This is very abnormal.

The problem is amplified by Detroit being settled by the French who have some sick obsession with colonizing swamps. The whole area has terrible drainage issues.

My mother and some family happened to be coming home that night from Canada, towing a camper(~22ft long collapsed), crossed the border at port Huron, when they hit gridlock on 75 they made the mistake of heading southwest for 94, rather than turning around for the hills. Zig zagged across the metro area. Good thing they were in a old Grand Cherokee, pulling a hardside pop up with foamcore construction(IT FLOATS) they were fording water up to the tops of the tires at times. The normally 3-3 1/2 hour drive took 9.

MDOT is saying they believe scrappers have taken copper wiring out of the pumping stations, rendering them useless. They've caught scrappers in the past robbing wiring out of the pumping stations, and they are inspecting the stations to see if that was the case here.

DrBoost wrote: MDOT is saying they believe scrappers have taken copper wiring out of the pumping stations, rendering them useless. They've caught scrappers in the past robbing wiring out of the pumping stations, and they are inspecting the stations to see if that was the case here.

Why am I not surprised?