Rain finally stops but part of Detroit's Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood floods
DETROIT (FOX 2) - After 48 hours of nearly non stop rain or drizzle, it's finally starting to dry out in Metro Detroit. From Sterling Heights to Brownstown Township, there was widespread flooding along the shoreline.
Detroit's east side, particularly Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood, were dealing with water leaking through a multi-million dollar temporary dam.
“They couldn’t wait until the pandemic was over. If they had, we would have lost a lot of homes in Jefferson-Chalmers to flooding,” Mayor Mike Duggan said about the dam on May 1.
The city finished installing the orange tubing called a Tiger Dam last week. It's flexible, stackable tubes used in place of sandbags to prevent rising water from flooding homes. They were installed along the river and canal seawall on the city's east side. See below for the city's reponse.
So did it work? Blake Grannum said not exactly as water pushed over her deck.
"I've lived in Jefferson Chalmers my whole life. The last time it was like this was 30 years ago," she said. " We've never had this problem before when the city put this in.
City of Detroit says it is working to fix flooding issue in Jefferson Chalmers
The city of Detroit recently installed a Tiger Dam to eliminate flooding in the east side neighborhood, but said there is a learning curve after a resident complained of excess water Tuesday following a torrential downpour.
We contacted the city and two spokespersons said they haven't 'heard any complaints until we contacted them. They said they've heard only good things about the temporary measure.
RELATED: Detroit installing temporary dam to protect Jefferson-Chalmers from flooding
"I'm not saying that the Tiger Dams don't help other properties I can only just speak for the properties that I'm linked to," she said.
The properties are at Scripps and Chalmers and the city said they're contacting Blake in hopes of coming up a solution.
"Everybody's connected so if somebody's sidewall has a hole in it ... you get all of the water," Blake said.
