LANSING, Mich. — 76-year-old Judy Smith is taking all the precautions to make sure her basement doesn't flood again.
"I have my humidifier on and towels laid."
Smith has lived off of Cooper Street for 12 years.
She has never seen flooding until two weeks ago.
"There was two inches of rain in my basement, it came in through the foundation," said Smith. "It was devastating."
Fortunately for Smith, last night's rain only left a little water inside.... but left a pool in her back yard.
"I have water standing in my backyard, just coming to the edge of my house again," explained Smith. "I keep using a yard stick to poke through my deck to see if it's soaking through."
Smith is considering herself lucky compared to her neighbors down the street.
"There were some homes that had 5 to 10 inches of rain in their basement," said Smith. "It's just really total devastation in this whole neighborhood."
Lansing's public-service director tells Fox 47 the system has been overwhelmed by all the rain we've had lately.
"The problem is that the ground is already saturated so when the rain goes down, there's no where for the rain to go than to the storm sewer or if people have footing drains in their basement. it goes into those drains and then immediately into the sanitation sewer-- which is not designed to take all that rain at one point in time," explained Andy Kilpatrick.
The city is offering a basement back up prevention program to protect homes going forward.
"Homeowners can have their footing drains disconnected from the sanitary sewer and have a check valve so if there is too much water in the sanitary sewer it will not back up in people's basements," said Kilpatrick.
The city will be hosting an open house styled public meeting on July 11th where residents share their concerns about the increase in basement flooding in the area.
The city of Lansing encourages the public to call their operations and maintenance division first when they experience flooding or sewage backup.
that way they can send a service member out to see if its a city or residential problem.
If you have a sewage backup you should call your city or township's operations or maintenance office first.
Lansing's policy is to send someone out to see if it's the city's fault or not.
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