Thousands of homes across county damaged, flooded due to heavy rainfall

DETROIT - Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans declared a state of emergency at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 2, following widespread flooding and damage to approximately 3,000 homes in the County. The declaration also called on the Governor to do the same, so that state and federal resources may be made available to our local communities and citizens.

"Heavy rains this week on top of an already wet April have caused flooding and extensive damage in several Wayne County communities," Evans said. "With thousands of homes flooded or damaged, we don't have the resources locally to deal with this amount of damage and thousands of our residents are going to need help."

According to the National Weather Service approximately 3.65 inches of rain fell in seven hours from 8:53 p.m. on Tuesday, April 30 until 3:53 a.m. on Wednesday, May 1. Some of the hardest hit areas include: Allen Park, Dearborn Heights, Ecorse, the Grosse Pointes, Inkster, Lincoln Park, Romulus and Taylor. According to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service, 5.82 inches of precipitation fell at Detroit Metro Airport in April."There was just too much rain, in too short of time given already elevated water levels in many bodies of water, like the Ecorse Creek," Evans said. "Since the rainfall we've been working with our local partners to assess the flooding and damage, which is likely to increase, particularly if there's more precipitation."

Per the Declaration, Wayne County's Director of Homeland Security Tadarial Sturdivant will coordinate with local, state and federal authorities for assistance related to this emergency. The declaration is effective until further notice. The County also declared an emergency for flooding at 2 p.m. on August 12, 2014, after historic rainfall on August 11 of that year.

State of Emergency Declaration

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