Managing floods when there’s nowhere for the water to go

Last week, before tornadoes devastated communities across Michigan, record rainfall overwhelmed drainage systems and tributaries in Wayne County. The highest total was nearly 7.4 inches reported at a station in Belleville, a 24-hour total nearly all of which fell during this event.

The deluge also flooded the tunnels at Detroit Metro Airport and closed the McNamara Terminal for several hours. The National Weather Service reported that a record 3.5 inches of rain fell during that period at the airport, the most ever recorded on Aug. 24.

On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, Hugh McDiarmid Jr., communications director at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, talks about how the combination climate change of more frequent extreme weather events and a loss of wetlands has disrupted the watersheds.

Some references:

Definition of wetlands
https://www.epa.gov/wetlands/what-wetland

Southeast Michigan watershed
https://therouge.org/about-us/our-watershed/

Examining the link between wetland loss and flood damage
https://www.wisconsinwetlands.org/updates/making-a-case-for-wetlands/

Freeways and flooding elsewhere in the country
https://fox59.com/news/hundreds-of-drivers-stranded-on-houston-highways-due-to-flooding/