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VIDEO/PHOTOS: Floods turn Detroit area into sixth Great Lake; cops send divers (yes, divers) onto freeways



As a friend of mine said yesterday - in a way that only he can - "I'm sorry that Robin Williams is dead, but my basement's flooded."
It's not the death of a major celebrity, and it's not a race riot, but the most astonishing event in the nation right now may well be happening in the place Rob and I call home. Metro Detroit got absolutely socked on Monday with a rain storm for the ages, and the resulting water barrage overwhelmed sewer systems designed to handle heavy storms - but not storms like this. The photo above shows the interchange between I-75 and I-696, looking south about two miles from the Detroit city limits. And yes, there are cars under that water. When my son and I were out and about yesterday afternoon, someone told us she had heard about the police sending divers to check for people in their cars. We laughed, thinking about the urban legends that get started at a time like this. Remember the stories of people "surfing the building to ground" when the World Trade Center collapsed? Ha! People will believe anything! Oops. This one is true. Via the Detroit Free Press, here's video of yesterday's excursion in urban snorkeling:

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Details from WDIV:
Michigan State Police sent divers to check flooded freeways in the Detroit area to make sure no one is trapped in vehicles. Lt. Michael Shaw told WWJ-AM on Tuesday morning that a dive team checked Interstate 94 at Michigan Avenue and planned to check the interchange for interstates 696 and 275. He says there aren't reports of people missing after severe flooding hit Monday, but police want to be sure.
WXYZ-TV has amazing video, and lots of it: As of Wednesday morning, some of the freeways have re-opened but quite a few of the major ones remain closed. Thousands of people have suffered major damage to their homes. The nature of freeways, of course, is that they tend to be in a bowl, so if the storm sewers get overwhelmed, the freeways are often most vulnerable to flooding. And in this case, the sewers really got overwhelmed. Meanwhile, in the neighborhoods, it wasn't much better. My hometown of Royal Oak has been declared a disaster area, and a friend of mine who was simply trying to walk home from his parents' house actually had to be taken across venerable Webster Avenue by a guy who came along in a canoe. He took this photo from the canoe: Wherever you sleep tonight, sleep well.


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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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