Cadillac — The home of Flower Butler in Cadillac buckles a little more every day. The wooden floor separates from the wall, which separates from the ceiling.
The ranch-style house was submerged in 4 feet of water last month during widespread flooding in northern Michigan.
Butler and her partner, Matt Williams, want to tear it down but are waiting for a local building official to inspect it first. Six weeks later, they’re still waiting.
They’re not the only ones. For many Michiganians, life has been on hold since their homes were swamped by heavy rain and melting snow.
As quickly as the deluge came, the recovery has been slow. Residents endure long waits for inspections, repairs, insurance payouts and debris removal. Time is measured in weeks or months.
The aftermath has been ruled by uncertainty. Among the questions with no answers: How badly damaged are their houses? How are the owners going to pay for it? And when can they go home again?
“I’ve been through a lot of emotions,” Butler said. “Now I’m confused. I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”
Residents are seeking some type of normalcy, but normal is still a long way away.
State of emergency declared in 41 Michigan counties
What began as a spring shower turned into a downpour that lasted several days in early April. The ground was already saturated by the melting of 3 feet of snow in March.
Aquifers, lakes and rivers couldn’t contain all the water, causing flooding that stretched from one coast of Michigan to the other. The water inundated homes, washed out roads, toppled dams and breached levees.
“We’ve seen it all over the last few weeks,” said Lauren Thompson, spokesperson for the Michigan State Police Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. “We have been hit quite hard across the board.”
Thompson said it was too early to estimate the cost of the damage. Based on what some counties have found, the overall amount of destruction in the state could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Grand Traverse County alone experienced $15 million in destruction to homes and infrastructure, said Gregg Bird, the county emergency management coordinator.
It’s just one of 41 counties that declared an emergency during the flooding. The hardest-hit counties, Cheboygan, Wexford and Emmet, haven’t released damage figures yet.
During the past two weeks, state and federal agencies crisscrossed northern Michigan to tabulate the impact, Thompson said. Their findings will determine whether Michigan qualifies for federal disaster money.
Given the magnitude of the damage, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked for an extension of the deadline to apply for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The state has never had this many counties under a state of emergency at the same time, Thompson said.
When Michigan applies for help, it’s hard to say how soon the federal government will respond, she said. It’s one more mystery for flood victims to ponder.
Flood damage still visible across the northern Lower Peninsula
A visit to the most-damaged regions by The Detroit News last week found signs of a slow recovery.
Sandbags circled some properties long after the water receded in Cadillac in Wexford County. About 115 miles away, plastic bags of ripped drywall and insulation lined the street in front of homes in Indian River in Cheboygan County.
Barricades blocked traffic from damaged roads in Emmet County. Mold festered in the basements of untended homes everywhere.
At Black Lake, which is 15 miles southeast of Cheboygan, yellow ribbons placed on mailboxes by emergency workers six weeks ago are still there. They’re now joined by yellow signs reading “Black Lake Strong/ We are in this together.”
The posters are part rallying cry, part plaintive wail as waterfront residents struggle to rebuild their homes.
Antoinette Zalewski was looking for one of the signs last week so she could plant it in her yard along the lake. She’s proud of the way neighbors and community leaders have joined together to help the aggrieved.
“The flood disrupted so much,” Zalewski said. “Having to get rid of things we worked so hard for is heartbreaking.”
The residents of northern Michigan are in different stages of recovery, but they’re all moving at the same pace — slowly.
The luckier ones had little damage or a circle of friends who jumped in to help.
Others are waiting to hire someone, anyone. An army of builders, electricians, plumbers, carpenters and painters has invaded the ailing communities. Their numbers are legion, but are dwarfed by all the people needing help.
Missy Fowler of Indian River is wracked by insecurity.
She needs flooring, wallboard, insulation, a well pump, water softener and a hot water heater. Fowler doesn’t have insurance. This is the first time in her 74 years that she has had to navigate anything like this.
Fowler worries about the trustworthiness and quality of workers. She read online that the experienced contractors coming to her community have been joined by amateurs. She read a lot of other stuff about flooding repairs, but doesn’t know what to believe.
“Many people are offering cleaning, but who’s reputable?” Fowler asked. “It’s a lot to take in. My mind has been fried lately.”
Northern Michigan homeowners wait for the water to recede
As homeowners wait on contractors, they wonder how badly their homes are damaged.
The mold is visible, but what about their electrical systems? Are their wells contaminated? Have their septic systems been compromised?
They’re also dealing with niggling issues unrelated to their homes, like having enough changes of clothes.
Tracey Davis of Cheboygan lost half her possessions when her home along Burt Lake flooded. Not a day goes by that Davis isn’t missing something she needs. Sometimes it’s a fork. Other times, a toothbrush.
“The stress is always there,” Davis said. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It’s like that every day.”
She can’t do an inventory of her losses because her home still has water in it. Repairs and everything else are on hold until the flooding recedes.
Davis, who is staying with a friend, said she has run through a gamut of emotions: sadness, frustration, exhaustion, grief.
She also feels a loss of security, never imagining she could be driven from her own home.
Black Lake humor: ‘Next year we’re going to have locusts’
Black Lake is known for its short fishing season, which is limited to the catching of six sturgeons. In February it lasted 48 minutes.
In April, the lake became famous for something else. In the span of a month, lakefront homes were swamped by water, docks were crumpled by ice and a nearby woods was ravaged by wildfire.
“Next year we’re going to have locusts,” joked Susan Madden, referring to the biblical plagues.
Madden, who lives on the lake, can afford to laugh. Eight inches of water visited her home and stayed for six days, but still, she felt fortunate.
Friends jumped in to help. They ripped up carpet, floor, wallboard, insulation and floor cabinets, filling a 14-foot dump trailer two-and-a-half times.
Madden, 76, ordered new cabinets and is scrubbing her floor and walls to prevent mold from sprouting. Paint cans and brushes littered her kitchen counter.
“I have a lot of painting in my future,” she said.
Staying with a friend, Madden hopes to return home by mid- to late June. She has lived there since retiring as a high school teacher in Clinton Township in 2013.
Ever positive, she viewed her experience as an escapade, akin to moving to a new home. Madden called it an “adventure.”
Cadillac couple’s ‘dream home’ flooded with sewage
Unlike most victims of the flooding, the devastation of the Prieurs’ home in Cadillac didn’t come from outside. It was delivered from below.
The culprit was half a block away — a sewage lift station. The facility, overtaken by floodwater, malfunctioned, halting the pumps and causing wastewater to back up into homes.
One of the first was the ranch-style home owned by Sheila and Dennis Prieur. The raw sewage entered the basement through a floor drain and a washing machine hose and rose 6 feet.
The couple moved to a hotel for a week, but it was too expensive to stay. They bought a 32-foot camper and parked it in a relative’s yard.
Their homeowners’ insurance company mailed a check for $5,000, but they won’t cash it. They want more. One contractor estimated their damage at $30,000.
“That’s not happening,” Sheila said about depositing the check. “Something’s got to give.”
The Prieurs are thinking about dipping into their $17,000 in retirement savings to fund home repairs. They already used most of their savings to buy the home, which cost $274,000.
They had just moved into the house three months before the flooding. The move was so fresh that, among the damaged items, there were moving boxes that hadn’t been unpacked.
“My dream home is not my dream home anymore,” said Sheila, 68.
The couple has no idea when they might return home. They hope it’s before October. A northern Michigan winter, they said, is too cold to be living in a camper.
Weeks of standing water in summer cottages
Kirk Myers of Grand Ledge has an ideal spot for a cabin in northern Michigan; it’s just 400 feet from where the Sturgeon River empties into Burt Lake.
These days, however, his yard, the river and the lake all look the same. His cottage, along with neighboring ones, has been sitting in water for six weeks.
He continually runs eight pumps to remove water from his garage and crawl spaces. The pumps eventually wear out, so he replaces them.
Myers also built a fortress of 600 sandbags to block the 10-inch-high water from coming through his front door.
The bill: $6,000 and growing.
“It’s a disaster,” Myers said.
Myers, 70, is a plumber and mechanical engineer, so he’ll be able to handle any problems caused by the flooding.
He just needs to get rid of the water first.
“It’s just been a nightmare,” Myers said.
fdonnelly@detroitnews.com
(313) 223-4186
@prima_donnelly
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Northern Michigan flooding puts life on hold due to slow recovery
Reporting by Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
