ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. (WXYZ) — St. Clair Shores residents are cleaning up after severe flooding Monday when approximately 4 inches of rain fell in just one hour, overwhelming the city's drainage system.
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Streets turned into lakes and rivers as the storm hit, with water bubbling up through basement drains and submerging vehicles throughout the community.
"The majority of the streets east of Harper were flooded out pretty bad," Jack Preston, a St. Clair Shores resident, said.
Preston spoke to 7 News Detroit Tuesday as he worked to clean out his mother's basement near 13 Mile Road and Harper Avenue.
"Typically, probably four nights a week, I come see my mom," Preston said. "Of course yesterday, when trying to come over and see her, it takes me almost 40 minutes to get from 10 Mile to 13 Mile Road and when I did show up, she had quite a bit of water in the basement, probably 4 to 5 inches."
While most neighborhoods have dried out, significant standing water remains on some properties along Jefferson Avenue between Masonic and 13 Mile Road.
"When the rain started, my son was looking out the window and he said the street was flooding. So I went and looked in the basement because I'm like that's weird, they just redid this street couple years ago. I ran downstairs and it was coming up through the basement like a geyser," Jonathan Duke, a St. Clair Shores resident, said.
As water recedes, neighbors are discovering extensive damage, with some estimating thousands of dollars in repairs will be needed.
"I've got a fridge down there. The air conditioner and stuff. Hot water heater is off the ground. That was spared, but who knows what kind of damage is down there," Duke said.
City officials report approximately 40 homeowners have made claims of basement damage so far, but they expect that number to increase in the coming days.
"The rain started coming and it just came in buckets. The storm did not move. It stayed on top of St Clair Shores, Eastpointe, Roseville and just kept pouring and pouring," Dustin Lent, city manager of St. Clair Shores, said.
Lent noted this is the most rain the city has experienced since 2011.
"I’m sure the residents have heard numerous times they call these hundred-year rains, thousand-year rains. Unfortunately, we’re seeing these occur way more often than what a hundred-year rain should be determined as," Lent added.
Hear more from Dustin Lent in the video player below:
Despite all pumps functioning properly, the system simply couldn't handle the volume of water in such a short time.
"All of the pumps, I will say, were working. We didn't have a single pump that was down. We have a nice integrated system that keeps track of all of our pumps and it actually shows what those are producing and our system was flowing. The downfall is you just can't keep up with that much rain," Lent said.
The city is encouraging residents to document home damages and contact officials to request utility vehicles for removing storm debris.
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