Last week, the Edenville Dam and Sanford Dam collapsed, causing extreme flooding. The water damage has displaced over 10,000 Michigan residents from their homes. The heavy rains that have struck Michigan have additionally attributed to the damage. The Midland area is only an hour and a half away from East Lansing, where many students return for the summers. The flooding has left students in a state of anxiety and panic.
I reached out to some of the students to hear from them firsthand about what they are currently experiencing.
“My home was in the evacuation zone, so we did leave for two nights. We had the good fortune to be on slightly higher ground than our neighbors, so our basement was dry while pretty much everyone else in our neighborhood has piles of ruined furniture, flooring, insulation, and clothes stacked up six feet high on the curb. We have spent the past couple of days helping out some of my dad’s coworkers. I am so grateful we weren’t directly impacted, but it has been incredibly difficult to see so many of my friends have basements or entire homes destroyed and to see that footage they kept playing on TV of downtown midland and to see my home come into the national eye for yet another bad thing that’s happened here,” says Faye Kollig, a student at MSU.
MSU sophomore Kelly Craig reiterates the same sentiment. “I haven’t been personally affected by the floods because my neighborhood is outside of the flood zone, but I think it’s had a ripple effect across the community because a number of people I know had to evacuate from their houses, and it was very distressing. The past few days I’ve been driving around town and can see water damaged stuff sitting on the side of the road and people cleaning out their houses. It’s very sad.”
Kelly also makes an important point that many people are not considering. “Something that bothers me about the things being posted on social media is that there’s a lot of focus on Midland the city when Sanford and Edenville got the brunt of the damage. Yes, all of those places are in Midland County, but I think the specific smaller communities that were impacted the most are kind of getting absorbed and not specified. I think that they should be talked about.”
Faye encourages anyone not in the Midland area to donate if they can, understanding the impact that even a small donation has. “Entire neighborhoods were literally swept away in Sanford after the Edenville dam broke—the entire Tittabawassee floodplain impacted people all the way along it, from people along Wixom lake who suddenly have no lake anymore to those in Sanford and Midland who are having to rebuild their homes for the second time in three years. This area is no stranger to “100-year floods,” and it is absolutely heartbreaking to hear that poorly maintained private dams and infrastructure is at fault. Please push your representative and anyone else how important it is to prevent stuff like this and invest in local government, bridges, roads, and dams.”
“I feel like this could have been preventable. I know there were issues with the owners of Edenville Dam in 2018 because they repeatedly failed to address safety concerns about the dam and ended up getting their dam license taken away. It raises concerns for me about how dams are being run in different places in the country, and I want people to look at what went wrong so that this kind of situation can be avoided in the future.
Another thing that concerns me is climate change’s role in all of this. I don’t think our current water infrastructure is able to handle the heavier rainfalls and storms that are going to come with climate change. With Midland having Dow Chemical it’s also concerning because a lot of us in Midland were worried about a potential environmental disaster with a portion of Dow being in the flood zone. I’m not sure what ended up happening but it was scary to think about,” Kelly adds.
Both Faye and Kelly agree that any form of help would benefit the people affected.
“People can help by donating money as well as clothes, baby items, toiletries, water, pet supplies, nonperishable food, and other necessary items,” Kelly explains.
Faye closes her interview by specifically speaking to readers at home. “And in general, if you know anyone who has been impacted by a natural disaster, not just in Midland, reach out and ask what they need. Everybody is handling this situation differently, and everybody has been impacted in different ways.”
Our hearts go out to those who have been affected during this time, especially with Michigan with extreme numbers of COVID-19 cases. If you would like to donate to help families at this time, the Michigan Students for Midland Relief project is working directly with the Christian Celebration Center in Midland as well as the Miindia Foundation. You can donate directly here, and check out the Facebook page for more updates and information.