Midland Michigan massive flooding affer upriver dams fail

[GTBRMC]

Harrowing video of catastrophic failure at Edenville, Michigan dam yesterday. Wixom Lake can be seen draining away - a place we used to take our boat to waterski when I was a kid. Emergency evacuations of 10,000 people downriver last night, mostly in my hometown of Midland..

Major concern for big environmental problems if Dow complex along river adjacent to downtown Midland is overwhelmed. National Guard assisted Dow in emergency efforts to brace for floodwaters as Sanford Lake dam (between Edenville and Midland) was expected to fail completely overnight. It was overtopped, but - fortunately - has not yet failed.

River level rose from normal 14' on Sunday well past flood stage of 24' Monday then surged to record levels approaching 35' this morning (passing the "500 year flood" of 33.9' record from 1986). If the dam at Sanford holds, crest is expected at ~38' sometime around midnight tonight. 14' above flood level in the incredibly flat Saginaw Valley region of central Michigan is an astonishing flood.

Pilot captures aerial footage of roaring water as Edenville Dam bursts in Midland County

The video was shot from a small airplane by Midland pilot Ryan Kaleto.

www.mlive.com

 

[Weeb]

Wow thats a mess.

 

[Gym]

As if they're not suffering enough already

 

[GTBRMC]

Some great news: the river crested at Midland just over 35' late this afternoon, about 3' lower than predicted. A major mess, tens of millions of dollars of damage, and hundreds of lives seriously affected, BUT not nearly as bad as it looked like it would be just 24 hours ago.

 

[buckbuck]

Any news on the Dow plant?

 

[GTBRMC]

Yes. Dow, National Guard, and Army personnel had about 24 hours to build berms, temporary dikes, etc. using heavy equipment from both Dow and the local National Guard armory. Dow and its tenants (including DuPont) were also able to move bulk chemicals onsite to higher grounds in both trailers and railcars.

I was working at that Dow complex as a high school co-op stiudent in September 1986 during that major flood (whose record crest was exceeded this time by about 13"). There was a lot of peripheral damage during the 1986 flood, but if waters had risen another 12 - 18" at that time, the damage could have been catastrophic. They learned much from that experience and invested significantly to better prepare the plant for future flood events, both in terms of preventing any releases and guarding capital equipment. They put a huge amount of effort into the disaster prep process and planning, too. And it has been refined over the years as they regularly drill the process. The Dow safety people and fire department are among the best in the world (seriously).

Anyway, that all paid off big time this week. Neither the city, the surrounding towns, nor Dow or any of its tenants had any fatalities nor any major injuries. This was accomplished with 11,000 people emergency-evacuated (the city never drilled this), at least dozens of buildings completely destroyed, hundreds of buildings heavily damaged, hundreds of cars destroyed, multiple bridges destroyed, many mikes of roads heavily damaged or destroyed, one dam catastrophically destroyed (emptying Wixom Lake in less than two hours), one dam destroyed but not catastrophically (Sanford Lake drained out over the last 36 hours), a third dam further upstream significantly damaged, etc., etc, etc. Really, quite an amazing outcome.

The only environmental release related to the Dow complex, to my understanding, was the tertiary pond for the complex's waste water treatment plant was flooded with river water. So, the essentially clean brine from that pond was heavily diluted and pulled downstream. I am not an environmental engineer, but I do not believe this is anything to worry about. I have heard of no significant physical plant damage. Again, amazing.

It is possible that there were releases that have not yet come to light, but it seems less likely as the hours pass.

The saving grace among all this mess is the Sanford dam did not abruptly give up. It did slowly fail, but did so in a way that prevented a raging hydraulic hammer of muddy water from hitting downtown Midland and the Dow complex. If that had happened, the outcome would have been much, much worse.

PS: The Detroit Free Press reported today that Gov Whitmer asked for a federal disaster declaration and it was signed by President Trump today. The Freep also reported (without source that I could find) that one estimate of damage was ~$890,000,000. Very preliminary, of course.

PPS: Also worth noting, various politicos are calling this a "500 year flood event." Well... kinda yes and mostly no. The crest was a record and beat the 1986 500 year flood event by just over a foot. But the rain that caused this flood was less than half of the rain that caused the 1986 flood. So, it was (guessing here) about a 25 year rain event that caused equivalent damage to a 500 year flood event with root cause being not the rain amount but the complete failure of the undersized, neglected, and beyond-design-life Edenville dam at Wixom Lake. F.E.R.C. send toothless violation notices to the dams' owner (and previous owner) yearly for about 20 years and never really did anything about it. So that is at least a contributing cause, too.