How do you shelter in place when your shelter floods out? That was the dilemma many residents of Midland, Michigan, and the surrounding area of Midland County faced when two dams failed May 18.
The 96-year-old Edenville Dam was breached by rising water from heavy rains, emptying most of the contents of Wixom Lake into the Tittabawassee River and nearby lakes. The Sanford Dam, well downriver, failed as well. Thousands of residents who lived near the river and lakes faced quickly rising waters.
Patricia Benner, a local, estimated that her home was swamped in 9 feet of water that day, 4 feet in the crawl space and 5 feet on the downstairs floor. The kitchen, living room, dining room, a bathroom, and the porch are effectively total write-offs for “at least $50,000 in damages, maybe more,” Benner told the Washington Examiner.
Benner and her husband count themselves lucky to live in a multistory house that can be saved with great effort. At least one of her neighbors in a one-story home is “planning a demolition. There’s just not enough left to save,” she said. The couple found another neighbor, “a young woman who had water to the ceilings in their one-story home, sitting in the corner of her garage having a complete meltdown.”
Benner was annoyed that she lost all of her shoes in the flood and “spent three days wearing mud-encrusted, borrowed shoes.” The couple are staying in their daughter’s small apartment not far away, with the house currently unlivable. “It’s, ah, cozy,” she said. Other neighbors have had to rent hotel rooms if they can find them, and looting is a problem.
Midland resident Jarrett Skorup’s home didn’t get flooded. That didn’t mean he got to take it easy during the flood — or in the days after.
“My boat got a lot of usage the first day,” Skorup told the Washington Examiner. “Mostly taking people in [to their homes] to get valuables and move things to higher floors.” In subsequent days, he has helped neighbors pump water out of basements, demolish things that needed to be taken down, and move out “wet items” such as washers, refrigerators, and drywall.
While Skorup was helping with a boat and some heavy lifting, his wife was “watching up to 8 children at a time for other families while they work to restore their homes,” he said.
As the waters subside, the blame is rising. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has developed a reputation for heavy-handedness from her handling of the COVID-19 crisis, with a far-reaching stay-at-home order that has been extended until June 12. Her approach to the failures of the Edenville and Sanford dams is similarly combative.
Whitmer considered the question of whether “private companies” ought to “own critical infrastructure” such as dams in her state in a press conference. “I don’t think that they should,” she admitted.
The governor tasked a state agency, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, with investigating any wrongdoing by dam owner Boyce Hydro. That same agency is facing a class-action lawsuit by people whose houses were damaged, alleging that the agency contributed to the problem.
Jason Hayes is the director of environmental policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank located in Midland.
While it is true that heavy rains played a role in the Edenville Dam’s failure, Hayes told the Washington Examiner, “it seems increasingly clear that a mix of regulatory compliance and maintenance issues also played a role.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revoked the Edenville Dam’s operating license in 2018 because it did not have enough spillway capacity. That much everyone agrees on.
However, after the federal agency revoked the license, EGLE became the regulator of the dam. From 2018 to this year, Hayes said, “the dam’s owner, Boyce Hydro, and EGLE had an ongoing conflict over water levels and the potential impacts of water drawdowns on an endangered species of freshwater mussel.”
Right now, “EGLE is pointing at Boyce, claiming the failure is solely due to their attempts to save money, which led to poor maintenance,” and “Boyce Hydro claims that the dam failed because EGLE forced them to keep water levels too high — effectively prioritizing mussels over human safety.”
However, the resolution of that squabbling will be cold comfort for many people in and around Midland whose efforts to clean up and rebuild are hampered by the stay-at-home order. They have to find shelter in any way they can.
Midland County’s Office of Emergency Management suggested in a press release that displaced residents might stay at a Midland County Fairgrounds campground, which has “modern bathhouses, electrical hookups, and shared water sources” for only “$20 per night.”
“Campers,” the Office of Emergency Management advised, “are encouraged to adhere to all social distancing and COVID-19 related recommendations” during their stay at the campgrounds, whose entrance can be found “between Applebee’s and the Olive Garden.”
