We got a lot of fucking rain yesterday — more than usual, according to meterologists — and the majority of the freeways are shut down. Lots of basements are flooded, and there are hundreds of abandoned cars on the roadways.
Depending on where you were in the tri-county area, you saw between 4.5 to 6 inches of rain last night. WXYZ reports Detroit hasn't been soaked like this since 1925. Some cities were hit harder than others — southern Oakland and Macomb counties and northwest Detroit got it the worst, apparently. Usually one street in my neighborhood floods when it rains this bad, but I'm looking outside at a dry street. The freeways, again — not so much.
But it's a chaotic situation for sure. At least one death has been reported. My social media feeds are filling up with photos of flooded basements with knee-high water. I'm seeing tweets from friends of friends stuck on the freeway since last night. Local officials are calling for a state of emergency while law enforcement is sending out dive teams to look for any potential victims who might not have made it. (And, of course, there are really assholish and corny jokes about the water department shutoffs.)
There are videos like this of a public bus filling up with water as it (presumably) slogs through its normal route:
And there's this video going around and the one below of what's basically a waterfall in Royal Oak just off I-696.
What didn't happen, though: Katrina-like levels of precipitation, a total infrastructure collapse or a mass displacement of people from their homes. Twice this morning, I've seen the terms "refugee" and "survivor" bounced around, and yeah, those are easy go-tos because people love to compare Detroit to any third-world situation, but let's be serious. The people who are being rescued will have homes to go to. The freeways will be back to working condition sometime this week (though it'll probably cost us somehow in the long run). Yes, this is a disaster. But let's not be hyperbolic and disrespectful.
Oh, and it's supposed to rain again today. Great.