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A weekly show from the folks at East Lansing Info breaking down all the news and happenings in East Lansing, Michigan.
This is East Lansing Insider brought to you by ELI on Impact eighty nine FM. In this show, we break down all of the news and happenings in the East Lansing community. And now, today's East Lansing Insider.
Anna Liz Nichols:Hey, everyone, and welcome back to East Lansing Insider. I'm Anna Liz Nichols, deputy editor of East Lansing Info. And on this week's episode, we're talking about the recent heavy rainfall in East Lansing and Mid Michigan and the flooding that has ensued. Last weekend, we saw intense rainfall that overwhelmed certain areas of East Lansing, flooding streets, basements, and even submerging cars that were in the floodplain. Today, I'm joined by East Lansing info's managing editor, Lucas Day, who's going to talk a little bit about the flooding we've seen.
Lucas Day:Alright. So the storm that we got on, it would have been last Saturday now. We got about 1.87 inches of rain on on Saturday. That's the most since 04/02/2025 where there is about 2.22 inches. And this is data that I got from Walt Felver.
Lucas Day:He's a meteorologist at the Grand Rapids National Weather Station. I mean, the daily total, it's it's not anomaly from the last few years, I guess, which is the concern that we've heard from residents is that their houses, you know, their basements are flooded, and they're afraid they're gonna flood in the future. So just over the last, five years, this would have been the eighth most heavy the eighth most rain we got in a day in over the last five years, and this would be the fourteenth heaviest rain day that we've gotten over the last ten years. So we're getting, you know, one, one and a half of these a year, and this data is collected from the rain meters at the Lansing Airport. And just since I I started reporting at at Eli about three and a half, four years ago, what we've heard from residents is that, their homes didn't have a history of flooding until big storms that came in either '21 2021 or 2022, and now they've flooded multiple times over the last few years.
Lucas Day:The city's talked at length about the issues with flooding. They've talked a lot about climate change, making these storms that were once, you know, once in a one hundred year storms, once in a one thousand year storms more common. But when you start seeing these, you know, once in a one hundred year storms multiple times every every year, in some cases, like 2024, like, it tells you that the scale's outdated, which the city said. And so residents are asking, like, how often is my basement gonna flood? Like, I've talked to people that have young kids, and they bought their home that didn't have a history of flooding because they wanna do something cool in their basement with their kid for their kid.
Lucas Day:And now they don't know if they can put anything down there without it being ruined. You know, I think that a common way that we see, basements flood is it is the siding isn't really all that solid and rainwater seeps into the side, which happens to my house in Lansing. And it's not a huge mess. You know? There's not any standing water.
Lucas Day:It goes to the floor drain. But the house I lived in in college in East Lansing, the water came up through the floor drain, and I don't know how you stop that. And that's that's the more common complaint we've heard from residents is that they think something's wrong with the city infrastructure. You know, it's not uncommon for changes to be done on the city system, and they think that one of those changes has made water start coming up through their through their floor drains because they've been it happened previously, and now it's happened multiple times over the last few years. And the city's responded to that by doing things like backflow prevention programs where they can reimburse you if you put in a backflow preventer.
Lucas Day:The big development that's going through the works right now is the city is finalizing its wet weather resiliency plan, which mapped how water is traveling through the city sewer system, and it's gonna show the biggest areas of concerns for for the city so that they can then make plans for infrastructure fixes and things like that. They're real hopeful that that's that that's, you know, a solution to the problem, but those big infrastructure problems are years and years away. Like, it takes time to do that work. And so, ironically, this big flooding event on Saturday happened the day before the city stopped accepting feedback for that weather resiliency plan. So we're not into the, you know, fixing part of it yet.
Lucas Day:We're into the mapping out what is wrong part of that plan.
Anna Liz Nichols:I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that the fact that Michigan has seen these, you know, once in a hundred years floods, storms has now residents thinking, you know, what what if if it starts to rain rather heavily, which we have seen high levels of rain, you know, is this gonna mean catastrophe for for our local neighborhoods? And it is interesting. It is a mixture of we are seeing, you know, increasing adverse weather conditions, but it's mixed with statewide in Michigan crumbling infrastructure. A good example being in 2020 when over in the the Midland area, the Edenville Dam, failed. It was, basically a century century old, and it couldn't take the the increased porosity of our our our adverse weather.
Anna Liz Nichols:You mentioned you mentioned the infrastructure portion of this. What are some of the infrastructure concerns we're hearing in East Lansing?
Lucas Day:Yeah. I mean, that's the it's the belief that I've heard from some residents, and I'm not an engineer, so I can't tell you. But, like, just going back to that data that I got from the meteorologist today, this doesn't rank in the top 100 storms that East Lansing's registered since they started collecting data, which goes all the way back to 1800. So it's a long time. But like I said, there's been fourteen days with or or thirteen days with more rainfall over the last decade than what we had on Saturday.
Lucas Day:So if if your house flooded to the fourteenth biggest storm over the last decade, and maybe eight or nine years ago, your home wasn't flooding at all, like, you've gotta wonder what's changed. Is it one of the projects with the sewer? So I I I do understand where that that concern is coming from because we talk a lot about climate change when we have this discussion. I absolutely believe that's contributing to the bigger storms we're getting. That's something that you see all over the Midwest.
Lucas Day:But climate change didn't start in 2021. Right? Like Yeah. There were bigger storms even if they were less frequent. There were there were big storms before five years ago.
Lucas Day:So that's that's where the concern is coming from the residents. And, this mapping that's part of the weather resiliency plan, I'm I'm hoping we get an answer to if that's, if the city's infrastructure is part of an issue or changes are part of the issue. I don't know if they'd tell us if changes are part of the issue, but at least this mapping should show us, like, where the biggest problem areas are, and then maybe they can make adjustments for that.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. And right away, though it there is a question of why some of these bigger problems happen, why, you know, some people's basins flood, some people's don't. The consequence of of the not knowing is already apparent in East Lansing. Think one of the best examples we had from that Saturday was the parking area outside of the quarters apartments, which is not a new problem. It's it was quite something to see the pictures.
Anna Liz Nichols:I mean, you saw yourself. You went out there that Saturday for us. The water levels from from the rain going well above just engulfing cars. In fact, one of the cars that I saw in your photo, there was maybe, I'd say, six or eight inches left of the car, and I thought it was an Impala, like a low a low car. Come to find out from talking to the regs residents, the car I was looking at was a truck.
Anna Liz Nichols:So it's real high up there at the water level.
Lucas Day:Yeah. Everyone goes to the quarters or every every journalist in the area goes to the quarters when there's, heavy rains. I've gone to the quarters before, and it hasn't flooded because you just kind of anticipate that parking lot's gonna flood when you get heavy rain. And one of the things that struck me from talking to the residents is that they thought that the problem had been fixed because apparently there had been a lot of work done over the last year in that parking lot. It didn't flood at all last year after it flooded twice in 2024, and people's cars were lost, both times in those floods.
Lucas Day:So some residents felt safe, parking there. I heard from people that there used to be signs up warning of flooding, and those signs were taken down. So, I mean, you had to have had, I mean, way more than a dozen cars. I'd say close to twenty, twenty five cars were submerged in that parking lot, and I don't know how many of them are gonna work again. Like
Anna Liz Nichols:No. Yeah. Because I've been saying there's at least 10 cars that, like, there's no way they can work because I can see that the water went above their engine, but that's I'm aiming low on that. There it was, you know, at least 20 cars for which the water level went above the the the tire well.
Lucas Day:And so that
Anna Liz Nichols:that's a gamble at that level of of what's happening to your to your car.
Lucas Day:And one of the students I talked to was there with her dad and, what he said they're still hopeful that they can get some money from the insurance. They didn't think they'd get the full value of the car, but they were hope hopeful they could get some. And he said, regardless, he's not comfortable with her driving that car anymore even if it did turn back on because he thinks it's gonna have electrical issues, and that could make the car vulnerable to have issues while she's driving it later on, which creates a safety hazard. So that's kind of another piece of all of this.
Anna Liz Nichols:Mhmm. I did see a a picture of the Red Cedar River, which I think just exists to flood at this point. Back when we were at school, I remember people would take, you know, different apparatuses to to to raft down the the river when it would flood real bad. Same thing when when it would freeze over. There would be people, you know, skating on it.
Anna Liz Nichols:I don't know how welcome that was from the university, but it was always a funny thing to to see.
Lucas Day:If I didn't go over and see any of the Red Cedar flooding, I should have.
Anna Liz Nichols:I did. It was I saw the portion by the library had gone just so like, it's so close to the library. There was, there was a picture from someone at the state news, the Michigan State University student paper, where I believe they said the ducks had annexed more property, closer to the library. And so I'm very, very happy for the MSU ducks. Don't know what that does for the the local flora fauna.
Anna Liz Nichols:Well, I know what it does for local fauna. It gives the the ducks more dominion on MSU campus.
Lucas Day:Yeah. I've seen the pictures, not from this most recent flood, but of past ones where kids are taking kayaks, and it looks like they're going to class in some some of the buildings outside of MSU. I don't know where they're getting the kayaks from in the dorms. I I feel like those photos pop up every few years.
Anna Liz Nichols:I distracted us from the flooding off campus. Lucas, let's talk about solutions.
Lucas Day:Okay. So there's a couple of important things when we talk about fixing the city's flooding problem. And the first is that, you know, as climate change continues to get worse and worse, these we're probably going to get storms that set records, like, continuously cycling cycling through. That's not to say that, like, every year gets worse and worse. It's not climate change, like, worse.
Lucas Day:Like, it's not linear. It just it seems like, the probability of these huge rain events that overwhelms the system are becoming more and more common.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah.
Lucas Day:And so even if the city makes improvements to its, you know, storm management system, it's probably not there's probably not, like, a silver bullet fix that's in store because the storms are just gonna get, you know, overwhelm the system. They're they were uncertain. I talked about this last. If there was infrastructure fixes that they could make, that would be, you know, a catchall. There the other part of this is it's expensive.
Lucas Day:It's really expensive. When you're, you know, when you're digging into the ground, under the roads, and you're increasing the capacity for water that your system can take or ripping out those pipes and make the making the pipes bigger so that they can carry more water, which I know is one of the things that they want to do. Like, that's all expensive. You gotta pay people to do that. You gotta buy new equipment.
Lucas Day:You gotta replace the roads after you dig them up. Like, it's it's all expensive. And so the idea or the possibility that was floated at the most recent city council meeting when this was discussed back in December, the possibility that was floated was, to install a new utility that residents would have to pay. And we've already I mean, just last, November, we saw a millage rejected for parks and recreation, that residents don't wanna pay because they already feel that their property taxes are too high. And while utility is different from a property tax, like, it's still a new expense.
Lucas Day:And so the city thinks that they could leverage money through utility, well because there's, money in the state revolving fund that would, I think, do matches or low interest loan, something along those lines that, would build upon a stormwater utility. But, like, residents would still have to pay into this, for some of these bigger infrastructure expenses. Like, the city budget, they they're already structured to operate at a deficit this this fiscal year. The city manager thinks it's gonna happen again next year, and they've been pushing back infrastructure projects in other parts of the cities for city for years. And so for these big changes, like, I think a storm water utility is something that, we've gotta think of as a real possibility for residents to be paying into, and that could be, you know, a good chunk of change.
Lucas Day:And then even after they do pay that, it's, again, years and years for them to actually complete all the projects that they need to. They gotta find contractors for that type of thing. There are more short term things that they think they can do, like, just I think the one that, Cliff brought up was just figuring out where you want your water to go, like, where you direct it. So the example he gave was maybe there's some streets that aren't that busy, and you can kind of move your landscape so that the water goes into those streets that aren't that busy because you'd rather have that and those streets than in somebody's, you know, yard where it may flood your basement. So those that those are more of the short term things that they do.
Lucas Day:But long term, I think that we've gotta start wrapping our head around a discussion about a storm water utility because I think that's probably where this discussion's headed.
Anna Liz Nichols:What's a storm water utility?
Lucas Day:Well, utility, like, you've got a water utility bill to get, you know, water to your home or electricity utility. Like, all of a sudden, you'd be paying essentially for infrastructure to handle storm water.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. It is interesting that you say, like, all of a sudden and, yes, this would be a a cost that comes out all of a sudden. But if this was something the city had to implement, the problem doesn't come, you know, all of a sudden, but the solution would have to, you know, expeditiously come all of a sudden.
Lucas Day:Yeah. I mean, if people start paying into something new and I've got no idea how much money a stormwater utility would be. I don't think that they threw around figures. But if people start paying a new fee and then, you know, their home gets flooded as soon as they start paying that new fee, they're not gonna be happy. No.
Lucas Day:History tells us that's likely to happen for some parts of the city. I don't think that there were any widespread events last year, but for the summers before, like, it was a pretty routine thing. I know it was twice in 2024, for sure in 2021 because my house flooded a year. Like, it's just become routine.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. I'd say in the last five or so years, it's been very routine. Unfortunately, insult injury corresponded, not correlated, but corresponded with the onslaught of of COVID in in Michigan. Well, nationwide, but in Michigan in March, these adverse rain events. Because I remember back to refer back to the Edenville Dam disaster.
Anna Liz Nichols:That was one of the initial, you know, big rain events, flooding events that spurred a a larger modern conversation about what we're gonna do here in Michigan when it comes to, you know, our flooding problems, but also the infrastructure that can be impacted by it.
Lucas Day:Right. Right.
Anna Liz Nichols:Lucas, you told me earlier that maybe one of the solutions the city has considered is roping businesses into this. What's that all about?
Lucas Day:So there is a green code study committee the city assembled, and it did all sorts of things around the environment. The biggest thing was it was looking at policy changes, to try to reduce the flooding. And one it it came out with all sorts of recommendations. I think it was late last year. And one of them was to increase the requirements for new businesses, like the amount of, runoff water they have to contain on their site so that it's not spilling into the streets and creating a hazard.
Lucas Day:While the the city actually cons considered, I can't remember if it was a year long moratorium or a six month moratorium on new businesses in East Lansing just because of those flooding issues. That tells you, like, how top of mind this is for city government. Like, they were gonna not let any new businesses in for six months or a year or at least go through the city approval process, because they were worried that businesses were coming in and, doing things to their site that they were unaware of that was creating, increased issues with stormwater. And Oh, didn't They
Anna Liz Nichols:didn't construction? Yeah. Okay. I had a quest I had a question. Alright.
Anna Liz Nichols:So the the the rules they were proposing for businesses, was that more to do with construction or or more to do with once they're established, they have to have a certain amount of, like, permeable coverage, stuff like, like, a a green area or a water I a water barrel wouldn't be coverage, but it would be a a containment of of of storm water. But, also, another option would be, you know, planting trees or grass, turf grass that would retain some of the the the storm water runoff.
Lucas Day:Hang on.
Anna Liz Nichols:More focused on construct the construction period?
Lucas Day:I mean, no. It's not the construction period. It's probably all of the above. It's like, if you take over a site, it's, the the requirement is that developers have to build their infrastructure so it can handle 20% more water, on that site. That's that's one recommendation from that came from the committee.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And you can do, the example Cliff Cliff Wallace, the city's environmental, guy gave the example that, like, it's gonna mean different things for different sites. And the example, he said if you're on the north end of town where there's lot of green space, that could just mean digging another foot in your detention pond, which isn't really all that expensive. You just gotta, you know, dig another foot. But if you're downtown, it's it's more difficult because you're gonna have to engineer a way to capture 20% more water, and there's limited ways to do that.
Lucas Day:So it it
Anna Liz Nichols:That was my question. That's why I asked that.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And that that that's that that was Cliff's response. It's gonna be different project by project, I'm guessing. But, like, you can see how some businesses have found ways to, mitigate this. Like, the the one that sticks out to me is I think that Costco would have a huge issue with, with flooding because I I mean, a, some of the like, White Hills neighborhoods right next to, Costco, and they've had issues with flooding, but it's, like, at the bottom of a of a slope.
Anna Liz Nichols:I know. I'm like, yeah. And
Lucas Day:the parking lot's huge, which I'm sure is helpful in some ways, but, like, it's a it's a pit. And I drove over there to see if there are any issues on Saturday, you know, people were shopping. Like, Dustin one of our reporters, Dustin, texted me that he was coming back from Costco, and he was taking pictures of floods while he was coming back through.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. There is some green space. I know that the neighborhood is right there, but there is, like, quite a significant amount of green space. Ever so slightly, I would've I just looking at it, it looks like it's physically lower lowered level, just a small wooded area. And then to if you're heading towards towards East Lansing, to the right of it, there seems there is more green area, and I wonder if that helps or if that was intentional.
Lucas Day:Right. And, I mean, you'll hear the the mitigation strategies as these individual projects go through, but Costco, you know, predates my time here, so I'm not sure exactly what they did. Again, these fixes for the businesses, like, it's gonna help with street flooding or it should help with street flooding if they put this ordinance in into place. But it's not really a fix for you if you're in these residential areas probably because they're not mitigating the storm water from your site.
Introduction:East Lansing Insider is brought to by ELI on Impact eighty nine FM. We are on the web at eastlancinginfo.news and impact89fm.org. Thanks for listening.