So they don't have a great idea of what is wrong, no REAL remediation plan, 500 homeowners are out $10,000 or so AGAIN, and nobody can refinish their basements because it does rain from time to time. I just drove through a beautiful development in Rochester Hills...

Great article. You did forget to report the raucous laughter when representatives of the City made, what sounded like, silly comments and arguments. And the many (good-natured but sincere) catcalls and jeers regarding many of the City responses, e.g. the City's answer to why the July episodes of flooding in many of the same homes flooded in May and September were not "the same" or in any way the fault of the City.

Mays flood was an act of nature/God so no reimbursements, they swept July right under the rug claiming only a handful of residents were impacted although later he conceded what he meant was it might have been the street mains that backed up but it just wasn't the pumping station that caused July, and Sept DTE primarily to blame.

No substantive insurance ( $100,000 was what they said they carry).

The engineering firm who have been on the city payroll since the 90's are investigating their own work.

They are applying for state funds in a mid to late October ( lets hope it doesn't rain in the interim!) but didn't say what they would do with that money. No time line was given for repairs and frankly I did not here them conceded anything needed to be repaired. They indicated a new back up generator was or would be added but that is pretty much all I heard.

They said the street mains have been cleaned but I do not believe it given the amount of dirt on the roads that came up from city drains.

Did I forget anything? Anyone want to add or amend my summary? I think this sums up the most insulting meeting I have ever attended!

It was mentioned last night the the Inland District's sewer connects via the Kerby St pumping station to the Fox Creek Retention Tank in Detroit, then on to DPW for processing. It was also mentioned that on the night of Sept. 10 that tank was full. Quote of the night, "I'm not an engineer but if 8 pumps are pumping water to a retention tank that is full..."
Q1: Was that retention tank full on May 25?
Q2: What is plan B when the retention tank is full? Where can the Kerby St. Pumping Station send the water?
Q3: Is this a DPW problem? Are they not processing the water from Fox Creek fast enough?
Kerby St. Pumping station could in fact be fully operational but if it has no place to pump the water it seems like it will end up in our basements again.

I was at the meeting and I was a appalled the city officials had no answers especially to the May 25 flooding. Also it came out in the meeting basements flooded July 24 on the 200 block of Cloverleaf which many of the more than 500 hundred people that attended didn't even know. Shane Reeside earlier comment about the July 24 flooding was due to individual home owners not having their drains maintained until one resident on Cloverleaf got up to the mike and read the riot act to Shane Reside, .when he than began to change his former statement that he made. One resident on Colonial court said the estimated damage from the May 25 flooding was between $300,000 to $750,0000 dollars and the city of GPF has no insurance to cover a home owners loss other than a $100,000 insurance rider policy. Shame, shame on the incompetent leadership in GPF. or should I say there is no leadership at ALL ! ! !

That young man was outstanding, if he wasn't an engineer he sure had sought out expert advise as those questions were very thoughtful and clever!

I am a single business owner of a consulting business and I carry 10 times the amount of insurance that the City of Grosse Pointe Farms does. Is this a joke or a further show of incompetence?

As residents of the City of Grosse Pointe Farms, we pay taxes to the city; not to DTE. The city has a fiduciary responsibility to protect its citizens. After the first event, the city should have invested in back-up generators. Blaming DTE is not acceptable. The city needs to step up and take responsibility. They are running a city; not a convenience store.

As citizens of the city, we should demand that the civil engineering contractor be replaced immediately and all current contracts be voided. It is time to move on and reassign budgeted funds to the "Inland" infrastructure. We don't need our tax dollars spent on pools, marinas, club houses and skating rinks when our property values are taking a significant hit.

It's time Mr. Mayor and City Council to do the right thing.

The meeting September 15 at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial was not large enough for all the people that attended. They need to rent Cobo Hall downtown for the next scheduled meeting ! ! ! Also it was just wonderful to see Channel 2, Channel 4 and Channel 7 all at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial for the coverage of the flooding. It made the lead story at 10:00 PM on Fox 2 news. The 11:00 PM news lead stories for Channel 4 and Channel 7. So much for the property values or trying to sell your home in GPF since everyone in Michigan now knows to not buy a home in Grosse Pointe Farms ! ! !

I commend the city for hosting the meeting, but was dismayed at how woefully unprepared they were to answer questions and assure residents this will not happen again. Their lack of knowledge was stunning. And, there seems to be no clear plan in place to permanently fix the problem, just a few temporary measures.

In addition to the good questions above, I can't help but wonder why the emergency pumps (no. 7-8) have no backup generators, why the switch mechanism has no backup in case of failure, why the station was unmanned after May 25 (or at least had an on-call system in the event of big storms) and why the city selected the "low-cost provider" each time they approved major upgrades.

In my view, the system worked fine until the city upgraded the sewers in the inland district several years ago. Shortly afterward, in early January during an uncharacteristic heavy rain, we experienced major basement flooding for no discernable reason -- several plumbers deemed our system fine, the city videotaped our main line, which was clear, and the city claimed it was not an equipment failure on their part. I truly feel for the residents who experienced such terrible damage this summer.

As someone said last night, our elected officials chose to run for these positions and represent us, the residents. Now they face a crisis, and they need to rise to the occasion, demonstrate and demand accountability and find a permanent solution. It's times like these that define good leaders...

Hooray for "small business owner" who realizes that we have spent many years constructing lovely, luxury edifices in the Farms (which REQUIRE MANY DOLLARS to maintain) with no vote and little input from citizens. Helloooo. The inland district could use some of those tax dollars.

I attended the meeting as many of my fellow peasants did and only after reading this article did I glean the information that "Grosse Pointe Farms also intends to have the pump station manned 24 hours per day until the exact problem is revealed and handled." Am I missing something??? Why was the pump station not manned 24/7 after the May event. Given that they are no closer to understaning the cause the 2nd time around and that "The station was not manned and therefore there was some response time necessary for a person to drive to the station to determine the problem", I would think it would have been beneficial and slightly PROACTIVE to have considered this from the first wipe-out.

I'm sure there would have been many volunteers to take a hour or two shift to watch if there was a pump failure and send up the Batman signal. Or..... pay someone minimum wage for this task. That's much cheaper than 500 homes x $10,000 = $5,000,000. Start thinking outside of the box and FIX THIS!

Sara -
We will really look forward to the additional articles. Are you aware of the sanitary sewer flooding at Kerby Field near the dog park? The Community Building (party building) at the Pier Park also flooded with sewer water, a wedding reception was held the next day and one is scheduled for tomorrow with sanitation yet to take place.

The City's explanation for the May flood, that it was a combination of events is acceptable to me. Many residents had not experienced flooding for several decades, so the power outage is a viable excuse. However, that premise, once accepted by the City and the Citizens, makes the city completely liable for the damage in September. In their own words, they knew why the first flood occurred, a failure of DTE to provide sufficient power. The solution then was to ensure that power was available to the pumps. So they either chose not to fix the problem or didn't know how to fix the problem. Either way, it was incumbent on them to fix the problem after the first time it occurred. Admitting it was a power supply problem this time only demonstrates that they did not address the problem. They should have had the ability and knowledge to prevent the second flood but did not. It is obvious that once the pumps were turned on that the water receded. That is negligence.

Just received a call from my Insurance Company's subrogation department. They are going after the city to try and reclaim the payout made to me (and others).

Below is a comment I'm posting for a Farms resident who encountered some technology glitches in trying to post it on his own.

"What was clear at the meeting was an unsettling gap between the emotions expressed by home owners – above all, frustration – and the businesslike, almost plodding, presentation by city leaders and staff. They showed a slide of six or seven steps they are taking or will take. They spoke of studies and obtaining a grant to fund those studies, of consultants and meetings. All that takes time. Six months? A year? Two years? Meanwhile, OUR horizon is the next rain storm, maybe tomorrow. I heard one promising thing: They will now man the Kerby pump station 24/7. I was stunned to learn that a facility so essential to the health and well being of the community is NOT staffed 24/7. As a result, water must rise high enough to set off an alarm that summons a person to drive to the pump house to determine what the problem is and how to solve it? I’m firmly convinced that had someone been on duty the evening of Sept. 9-10, our backup problem would not have been as severe, and may not have occurred at all. So, when will 24/7 monitoring begin? The answer I want to hear: NOW. TODAY."
James Gerardi, Grosse Pointe Farms

How does one explain how GPF side of Fisher Road flooded, while the GPC side did not?? What is the City doing, that we are not? Same elevation, same amount of rain... how far does one have to look to gain insight into something that might indeed work???

The flooding is serious, but it's the tip of the iceberg of problems in Grosse Pointe Farms. The tax department is set up to confuse the citizens. I sent a letter to every member of the city council last year about the messy files, not one responded. Our taxman, Tim O'Donnell, is ripping all of us off. It is encouraged by Reeside and the city council. They have such a mess on their hands, they will go to any extent to hide it!

Posting our email that was sent to the following people this evening:

Dear Mayor Farquhar, Mr. Reeside and Mr. Brennan:

Thank you for your time last night to update us and answer questions regarding the multiple basement flooding events that have occurred in our city over the last four months. We appreciated the overview of the situation, as well as the list of action items you communicated during the presentation.

During the Q&A session, we agreed this situation is extraordinary, and the steps needed to fix the issue should be dealt with in an extraordinary manner. Given that, we collectively agreed to weekly status meetings to discuss the progress of each action item provided in your presentation, with the first status meeting beginning on Monday, September 26th at a location to be determined.

We would like the following updates for each Action Item referred to in your presentation:
1. Status (i.e. Not Started, In Progress, Delayed/Pending, Completed, etc.)
2. Person responsible
3. Resources needed
4. Expected start date
5. Expected completion date
6. Additional notes/information/clarification
7. Next Steps

(continued in next post)

(continued from previous post)

While we had the opportunity to vent our frustrations last night, I would suggest a few ground rules for these status meetings, such as:
- All questions from the citizens should be specifically related to these action items
- No personal attacks
- Everybody agrees to stay on track with the agenda
- Questions of clarification are encouraged. Disparaging comments are discouraged.

We look forward to achieving an expedient resolution to this extraordinary situation. Our biggest fear is another flooded basement. Having an accountable plan that is communicated on a weekly basis will help ease our fear, and allow us to determine when we can begin the process of reconstructing our basements (again) and replace the contents that were destroyed.

We are proud to call Grosse Pointe Farms our home. Please use this unfortunate situation as an opportunity to demonstrate your leadership, aptitude and perseverance to resolve the issue swiftly.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. In addition, please reply by end of day Monday, September 19th, to confirm the location and time of the first status meeting on Monday, September 26th.

I was at the meeting. As an active local Realtor, I wish I could say that property values are my only concern. I'm sorry to say it felt like a greater waste of time than (re)cleaning our basement. There are so many points to hit on, but the central focus has to be that our job is to pay our taxes, the city is supposed to effectively manage the affairs charged to it. Whether the council will not hold the manager accountable or if the manager is incapable is THE matter that should be explored by the citizens. The engineering is the smoking gun, the (you pick) apathy or incompetence is the murder. The citizens of this fine community have been robbed by those they elected to serve them. Is this same malfeasance being administered in running our police, fire and fresh water? Thus further jeopardizing the fine committed folks that serve us. An even more sobering question to ponder...

If anyone had recieved confirmation of Monday's weekly status meeting, please post it hear for the group. I am interested in attending, but have not seen any details.

There are some great comments and opinions all thru this thread that need to be (sorry) flushed out. I also agree with KDD on all points. By our losses, we have earned the right to have all our concerns heard no matter how articulate or entertaining we are or aren't. Don't have an answer for the time it will take, another fun consideration of this mess. I hope all will continue to show at the meetings, and hold the city accountable. It's disgusting we have to sue ourselves to get the city to act. I read an article about flooding in Lincoln Park in July. Lincoln Park VOLUNTARILY offered payments ($3000.00) to all affected residents right out of the till. Go figure. Any ideans on why the rental generator (will love to see that bill-sure they'll get a credit toward any purchase...) still isn't hooked up? Also reviewed some of the info the city put out on the Lakeside separation project: "Because this project benefits the entire community, these costs will be borne by all property owners in the city." Guess I didn't read their definition of benefit...?
Again, the real tragedy is that the city doesn't use this to PROMOTE what a great city this is, and how committed the city is to serving it's residents. How they got elected is one story, why we let them stay after this mess is another.

Sent an email to the editor, but apparently she's out of town, hope this helps folks & doesn't get me bounced off here! http://www.facebook.com/pages/GPF-Inland-District/173896612689917

At the Sept. 26 War Memorial Meeting, not all of our questions from the Sept. 15 meeting were answered. Mr. Reeside told us that we would get answers at the next Council Meeting Oct. 3, 7:00p.m. Residents......if you want answers and want action, please attend. They are willing to put this Sewer Backup Issue on the Agenda, so please, let's make it worthwhile.

Also, someone on this website questioned why nothing was done after the May 25 flood. My perception is that not enough residents demanded answers. How terribly sad, but true. So, keeping that in mind, even though we may not get a seat, please stay informed by coming to the City Council Meetings, if this is our only venue. We have the right to be heard, and to be sincerely listened to. (I wonder what the procedure will be for this? Nothing surprises me anymore)