EDENVILLE, Mich. (AP) — People living along two mid-Michigan lakes and parts of a river were evacuated Tuesday following several days of heavy rain that produced flooding and put pressure on dams in the area.
Two Midland-area schools were opened for evacuees and more than 50 roads have been closed. The evacuations in Michigan followed days of heavy rains in parts of the Midwest that also brought flooding to Chicago and other parts of Illinois, as well as Ohio and other states.
“We were laying in bed when I heard sirens,” Jon St. Croix told the Midland Daily News. “A fire truck was driving around, broadcasting that (we needed) to evacuate. It’s a scary thing — you’re sleeping and awake to sirens.”
St. Croix, 62, his wife and a next-door neighbor were among more than a dozen people sheltering in one of the schools. Their home was not flooded, but St. Croix said he had seen flooding in the area.
Volunteers at the schools said about 120 vehicles were in the parking lots and about 30 people had been staying on cots inside, according to WNEM-TV.
The television station also reported that the driver of a pickup truck was rescued by first responders after the vehicle was swept away on a flooded road in Tittabawassee Township.
In Chicago, water that flooded some areas downtown was receding on Tuesday, but Larry Langford, a fire department spokesman, said that he did not expect power to be restored at the iconic Willis Tower for days because the rains caused the building’s subbasements to fill with as much as 25 feet of water. The building was closed to tenants and visitors.
And in DuPage County, west of the city, a search for an 18-year-old woman who was swept away by a surging DuPage River last Friday remained suspended on Tuesday because the water remained too high and the current too swift to conduct the search safely.
Tony Martinez, spokesman for the DuPage Forest Preserve District, said the area of the river where the woman was swept that is typically about 25 feet wide remained 200 yards wide.
“We hope to resume searching later this week,” he said.
School buses and dump trucks were called out Tuesday in southwest Ohio to help evacuate people trapped in flooded areas in a commercial area with dozens of businesses in suburban West Chester Township.
By noon, West Chester Township spokeswoman Barb Wilson said a dozen people had been taken to a nearby high school, while other people were able to make it out of the flooded area in their own vehicles.
There were no injuries reported immediately in the area just off Interstate 75 north of Cincinnati.
Flood warnings in Michigan were issued following widespread rainfall of up to 4 inches since Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy runoff pushed rivers higher.
“A lot of the rainfall came and hit the Saginaw Valley over the last 48 hours,” meteorologist Andrew Arnold said Tuesday morning. “For the most part, the rain is over.”
The weather system was moving into Indiana, Ohio, parts of Illinois and the Tennessee Valley, Arnold said.
