Historic flooding takes a toll on roads and bridges across Michigan

As rains continue and in some areas of Michigan, rivers and tributaries continue to rise, crews from across state government and local agencies are working to protect and monitor the condition of dams, roads and bridges.

Bill Wahl, associate region engineer for the Michigan Department’ of Transportation's North Region, is keeping a close eye on the damage to roads and bridges across all of the norther lower peninsula. He spoke on the podcast the afternoon of Thursday, April 16, about all that’s going on in the moment.

Below is a list of bridges that have been closed and/or damaged by the floods already beginning with each structure number (STR):

 Arenac County
STR 445 State Road over Rifle River 

Muskegon County
STR 14563 Holton-Duck Lake Rd over Cedar Creek

 Manistee County
STR 6460 Johnson Road over Big Bear Creek failed; closed prior to failure

STR 6450 River Road over Big Bear Creek 

Grand Traverse County
STR 3059 – failed; closed prior to failure

Farmington Hills
STR 14367 Tuck Road over Upper Rouge River 

MDOT Grand Region
STR 8593 M-66 over Middle Branch River

STR 7551 M-120 over Cedar Creek 

MDOT Superior Region
STR 6792 US-2 over Big Cedar River 

Menominee County
STR 6867 30 Mile Road over Little Cedar River

STR 6868 31 Mile Road over Little Cedar River

STR 6871 41 Mile Road over Big Cedar River

STR 12855 Route 358 over Little Cedar River 

Midland County
STR 6980 Schreiber over Weeks Drain

Transcript

Jeff Cranson 0:07

Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. Earlier today, I spoke with Bill Wahl, who is the Associate Region Engineer for the Michigan Department of Transportation in the North Region, which is based in Gaylord. I really wanted to get somebody to give us an overview of what's going on with the flooding, which I'm sure you've heard about. The rains continue, uh lots of things going on with dam failures, but we've also had a number of roads that had to be closed, some because of actual washouts, because of culprit failures, some bridges that have had to be closed because of high water or because of damage. Many of these are on county roads, roads that are not under MDOT jurisdiction, but under FHWA guidance, the Bureau of Bridges and Structures at MDOT keeps track of all the bridges in the national bridge inventory system in Michigan. So whether they're actually owned by the state or owned by a local agency. They track those. So we're following that. They'll talk a lot about what's going on, what they'll be doing to assess the damage, how long it might take to make repairs and rebuild some of these bridges and roads. Probably most notably is M119, north of Harbor Springs, known as the Tunnel of Trees, a beautiful stretch of road that many people have traveled on. It's a heavy tourist destination in Michigan. So the situation is is dynamic. Even as we speak, things are still changing and things could be changing by the time you listen to this later today or later in the week. But I hope you at least are interested in what Bill had to say. Once again, I'm back with Bill Wall, who's the Associate Region Engineer in MDOT's North Region. And Bill, the only other time you were on the podcast, it was after that ice storm a couple of years ago. So I hate for people to think all you do is traffic in disaster, but the last few years it probably feels like it, doesn't it?

Why Water Is Not Receding

Bill Wahl 2:09

It does. Yeah. I seem like, yeah, the last time I was on this, I was dealing with a massive ice storm. Now we had another ice storm this spring and now turned around with massive flooding. So it's been an interesting couple of years.

Jeff Cranson 2:20

What have you heard? Um, this recent flooding, uh, what's the common reference are we talking about? 100 years, 500 years? What do you think?

Bill Wahl 2:29

And most of the stuff I'm seeing is probably closer in the 500-year range. Some of the spots, I know a lot of the spots with storm or stream gauge measurements um around the state, in northern portion of the state at least, are far exceeding the record flood they have on that they've ever had. Um the Manistee River over in the Sherman area is I almost three feet, I think, right now, above the historic record flood level.

Jeff Cranson 2:55

Somebody from one of the counties talked about, you know, you can do all kinds of stuff. You can try to pump the water, you can, you know, try to sandbag, but there's only so many places for the water to go. The ground is saturated, the tributaries are full. So it's like in some cases, until the rain stops, this just isn't going to recede, right?

M119 And M68 Damage Reality

Bill Wahl 3:15

Right. That's the biggest issue we're running right now. The swamps are full, the ditches are full, everywhere's full. People are running some pumps all over because they need to. The water is just going back outside and is going into areas that are full already. Um, so it ends up just being a cycle of the water comes in the bottom and goes back out the top. Um, and that's really the issue we have. A lot of these rivers have massive drainage basins on them. I was out yesterday with one of the counties, and as we were driving around, they were seeing that there's swamps, the water in the swamps was starting to go down, but the swamp drains into the lake. So the water in the lake is still going up because you've got all these swamps draining in. So there's always a delay from when the rain happens. Plus, we had a lot of snow melting off and the ground was still frozen. So stuff that normally would drain vertically was draining draining over land to either the lakes or the rivers, and we're just waiting for it to make its way out of the system.

Jeff Cranson 4:07

Yeah. So talk a little bit about what your life has been like these last few days. Um, the north region is probably uh probably more than a third of the square miles in the entire lower peninsula. It's vast uh east to west. Um, and you've got problems on both ends. I think most notable for MDOT in terms of MDOT infrastructure is what happened on M119. Those photos are horrendous. Um talk about how long it's going to take to be able to even assess the damage, let alone think about rebuilding.

Bill Wahl 4:39

Yeah, so we've got the issue you reference on M119. We also have a culvert on M68 closer to Roger City, that the damage doesn't visually look as bad from the top, but realistically is just as bad as what we're dealing with on M119 and on a road that's got a lot higher traffic volume and has a lot of heavy commercial road traffic on it as well.

Jeff Cranson 5:02

M68 compared to M119. But more people from downstate have probably traveled M119. Yes.

Bill Wahl 5:09

More people have traveled and are aware of that one, um, for sure. But yeah, so with all these, right now we're still in the problem that we've got areas that normally are little tiny streams, maybe a little trickle of water, that are gushing rivers. The ground around them is totally saturated. Before we can start really designing a repair, we have to be able to get in and survey what we have. And the ground's so soggy, so white, you can't even get in there. It's basically like being in quicksand. Um one of our guys tried to go down on that M119 bridge or collapse there, and just to check and see where would the stream bed normally be and stepped in sand and went in over his knee because there's basically quicksand.

Jeff Cranson 5:48

That's kind of scary.

Months Not Days To Reopen

Federal Emergency Relief Funding Basics

Bill Wahl 5:50

Yeah. Um, so before we could even really start really putting designs together, we've got to let it dry out a little so you can safely get in there. We are already discussing though, what are we gonna do at each of these locations? How do we what's the most efficient and expeditious way to solve it? Hopefully we can get them both back open relatively soon, but in this case, relatively soon is a period of months, not a period of days or weeks. Um because even once we can come up with the design, you still need most likely we'll end up putting in large concrete culverts in different spots. Somebody's gotta build them. And these aren't things that are stit sitting in stock at the local uh local supply yard. Are you talking culverts that are 12, 20 feet long, 10, 12 feet tall? They they're built custom to the site you need them. So you need to, once we get a design, then you've got to get somebody to build it, a contractor to install it. So we're starting all those processes and have ongoing discussions on what's the right fix at each spot. Um, but it's definitely gonna be a period of time before we can get

Speaker 3 6:55

things back.

Jeff Cranson 6:55

That's a really good point. So talk about how we're gonna get the funds to do this, because it's not like MDOT hasn't already exhausted its winter maintenance funds, and you're gonna this is gonna have to come from somewhere. And from what you've told me already, having the local and state uh emergency declarations kind of start the clock so that we can probably go to the the federal and get some emergency funds, right?

Bill Wahl 7:20

Yes. So now that we have declarations, um the federal highway administration has a set of funds called emergency relief funds that are available for situations just like this. We've used them a lot as a state in the past with the floods down in Midland, some of the different issues we've had up in the Houghton area. Um so this does open up availability for those funding, both for MDOT as well as for our local partners at the counties and the cities, depending on the type of damage that they have. Um, but there is a clock that goes on them and a lot of detailed information that needs to go into those applications. So we're already we're starting those meetings right now to say, all right, what do we need to make sure we're capturing at each of these locations? What do we need to document to make sure that we set ourselves up to be eligible for those funds to help take care of this? Because as you said, our winter maintenance budgets are fully expended, plus a large chunk after the winter we've had. And with that comes not only the winter, but potholes and other damage that's really worse than I've seen in my 15 years of doing this roll with maintenance. We're seeing potholes in spots. We've never seen potholes after this winning. Well, and if we don't know, it's only the winter, but it's the other half, it's the spring to put it in the middle of the street.

Jeff Cranson 8:33

So if we think this is another 500-year event, which is what they classified the floods in Midland back in 2020 that collapsed a dam and then collapsed an M dot bridge and part of US 10, you know, that tells us that these things are happening, happening with more frequency. You've got to build for resiliency. Will those federal ER funds allow you to say, in the case of M119, to build a culvert with the kind of capacity to withstand something like this?

Building Bigger For Future Floods

Working With Counties On Detours

Bill Wahl 9:03

Yes. Um, and that's that's always one of the requirements when you come back to put something back. We're not, they won't let you just put back what was there that you lost. Well, and that's part of what'll take the time to make sure the design is right, is making sure the hydraulic analysis is done and really looking at the over the flow rates and what the current weather patterns are predicting for the future to make sure we're sizing these, whether it be the one on M68 or the one on M119, sizing them properly that this doesn't happen again. And the last thing anyone wants to do is spend a couple million dollars or more replacing something to have it fail again. So making sure that they're sized properly and have the ability to manage the water flow, but also then protect the environmental aspects of them, whether they're depending on the type of stream, if it's a trout stream or things, to make sure it's appropriate to the environment that you're putting it in, as part of the design challenge on any project like this to make sure you're impacting taking into account all the different factors that are going to affect it in the long term.

Jeff Cranson 10:04

So this creates um the need for relationships and collaboration, like everything. Um, and that some states do it differently, but uh we have several road jurisdictions here. We have county road commissions, we have cities and villages that have roads. Um you you're dealing with the state trunk lines in the north region, the the M routes, the I routes, and the US routes, but um MDAT does have a role in helping out the counties and the cities as they deal with what's going on with their roads and bridges. Uh, you talked about being out with one of the county engineers, I think, yesterday. So talk about that and how MDAT interacts with them.

Bill Wahl 10:41

Yeah, so we try to maintain really strong relationships with all these road agencies. We work with them closely on maintenance. Many of them actually we contract with to take care of our roads for routine maintenance, which helps tremendously in having those relationships in place. Um, but when especially when an event comes like this comes around, we have a level of resources and knowledge and in-house expertise that many of the smaller agencies just don't have enough staff to have on hand. Um, so we try to provide guidance and assistance whenever we can to use the knowledge and expertise we have to supplement what they have. Um, when we start getting into situations like this where you have disaster declarations and are ex have access to the emergency response funds, those funds will come from the Federal Highway Administration, but they'll flow through MDOT to actually administer them. So we'll work closely both at the region level as well as our staff and our local agency programs group in Lansing to make sure that nothing is happening during the process of using those funds that would jeopardize eligibility in the long term. Um there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of I's to dot, T's to cross. So we're gonna work hand in hand with those agencies to make sure that they're not gonna make a mistake because they don't do them. Luckily, most of them don't do this very frequently. Um even with MDOT, most of the time, each individual area and region doesn't do it all that frequently, knock on wood. Um, so we lean heavily on our um statewide experts to make sure we're doing this the right way and passing those lessons we've learned from the last disaster on to make sure the next one goes a little smoother, hopefully. Um but those relationships, as you mentioned, those relationships are key because as events like this are happening, they're very dynamic. And as soon as a road's closed, that traffic's gonna go somewhere. Um so as that traffic goes somewhere, if it's a local road, that traffic may be going onto the state trunk lines. When we have to close the state trunk line, typically up here, especially where we don't have a lot of state roads, that traffic's now getting detoured onto county roads. And having that relationship to figure out, okay, where do we want to send them, what's the proper detour route for this particular location, how do we not adversely impact their roadway while still getting people where they need to go is really important and really is key to having that relationship ahead of time so that when the disaster is occurring and everyone's scrambling trying to deal with stuff, you know who to call, you know who to talk to, you're not trying to introduce yourself for the first time. You're just pulling out your cell phone, calling the right person and figuring out the next steps to keep people safe.

Jeff Cranson 13:16

And what you're trying to be assured of is that that road can handle that volume of traffic and especially that volume of commercial traffic with heavier vehicles, right?

MyDrive Road Info Reminder

Bill Wahl 13:25

Yes, that they can handle that traffic, that the turns are gonna be safe for me, people to make the curves, that the speeds can handle it. So there's a structural component to it. Is the route road strong enough to handle that type of traffic? I mean, if it's a subdivision road, they're not designed typically to handle lots of big trucks, but the curves are gonna be a lot tighter. So it's also a geometry issue of can a big truck that's trying to get through there actually make the turns without ending up in somebody's

Speaker 3 13:53

yard.

Jeff Cranson 13:53

Please stay tuned. We'll be back with more talking Michigan transportation right after this.

MDOT Message 14:01

No, before you go, head on over to MiDrive to check out the latest on road construction and possible delays along your route. For a detailed map, head over to Michigan.gov / drive.

Jeff Cranson 14:16

So we talked a little bit about uh a couple of MDOT roads, um M119 and M68, but uh talk about some of the specifics you've seen on the local system. I think there's one in Grand Travers County in particular. The photos look pretty bad south of Travers City. Have you been over there?

Bill Wahl 14:33

I have not personally been on site at that one yet. Um so that's Bytener Road, south of Traverse City. Um and the Travers City area is really hit getting hit tough right now because they've there's, I think, five crossings over the Boardman River in the Greater Traver City area, um, starting at the bay and working the way down to Bitner. Of those five crossings, two of them are currently closed. The Bytner Road. And in that one, they had two large culverts that washed out. You go just a little bit north of there to South Airport Road, which is one of the main thoroughfares getting east to west across Traver City. And South Airport Road is closed due to water issues where it crosses the Borden River. So now you have two of the five crossings, and specifically two of the larger crossings on the south end of the community that are blocked, which is really creating a lot of traffic flow challenges. We're working with the Road Commission very closely right now and the emergency operations center in Grand Travers County to figure out what's the best way to manage this. How can we we know where traffic's gonna naturally want to go? So, how do we then manage that traffic and make sure that things are safe and efficient while they work to get their uh their sections back opened up?

Jeff Cranson 15:46

What else besides that one in Grand Traverse County, are you hearing about?

Dam Risks And Protecting Bridges

Speaker 3 15:50

So we're hearing a lot of stuff and around all around northern Michigan of culverts and roadways, culverts washing out, roadways with sides of them collapsing. That Bightner is probably the biggest and most well advertised and well-known one. But as I look around and I watch, try to watch through Facebook pages and things from just to see what's going on. And at one point earlier in the week, up in Cheboygan County, they had a post through the Road Commission and their central dispatch that basically just said all of our roads are underwater. There's water over all of our roads, which is a pretty amazing statement to say. Normally you've got water over road here or there. I mean, everyone's running out of water over road signs and detour signs because there's just so many spots. Most of them are spots where just the ditches are overflowing. There's just not enough, no place else to put the road, the water, and it's the elevation on the water has gotten above the elevation of the road, so it floods. Um, but there's a lot of spots, especially on the smaller city roads and county roads, that sides are washing out, culverts are washing out, and there's gonna be a most of them are relatively low volume roads, a lot of gravel roads. But they're gonna take time, they're gonna take money to put back. And depending on the size of the issue, may or may not be eligible for emergency funds if it's a felt, but they add up to a lot of money for road commissions in cities that don't have a lot of funding coming into them.

Jeff Cranson 17:22

And MDOT doesn't have a real role with dams, but we are finding out what people have been saying at at both the Department of Natural Resources and at Eagle that um a lot of these dams are in bad shape. And now we're finding out what that means. Um, and so while MDOT might not have a role, those dam failures can definitely affect roads and bridges nearby. Um sounds like you're monitoring one pretty closely, the Homestead Dam on the Betsy River.

Speaker 3 17:49

Yeah, so we're monitoring there and also up in Cheboygan. Um, pretty much there's a number of dams throughout northern Michigan that are that DNR and Eagle are watching very closely. The Homestead Dam, the Bel Air Dam, the Cheboygan Dam, all of them have MDAT assets relatively close downstream from them. So we've already been out with our bridge engineers looking at those bridges, evaluating those bridges, checking the plans of what type of impacts we would anticipate if there was a breach at those dams. Um, as you said, we really don't have a role in the dam. We can't control whether or not that anything fails. Um, but we are in communication to know that if there was a breach, we're aware ahead of time, aware as soon as it's happening, so that we can try, if need be, to get our road closed and try to have some understanding of what the most likely impacts are if that dam was to fail. One of the steps we've taken as a precautionary measure up in Sheboygan is we have a movable bridge, the Sheboygan lift bridge is just downstream from that dam. Um so once water hit the level that they started putting their emergency protocols in place in Sheboygan, out of an abundance of caution, we actually opened the bridge up closer to traffic and intend to have it maintained in that open position until the water levels subside a little bit, the risk of that dam failing goes away. Um, with those assets, especially with the movable bridge, they're so high dollar of assets and they're very complicated to operate. The risk of if the dam was to fail and you had both water flooding through it plus debris and other things that were happening, damaging that bridge and preventing it from operating appropriately, that could be a multi-year project to fix if one of those gets badly damaged.

Jeff Cranson 19:36

We may Yeah, when I first heard that the other day, the the notion of opening up, I thought, well, how big a difference could that make in terms of the water flow? But I hadn't thought about the debris that comes rushing through there, too, and the damage that can do. So that makes a lot of sense.

Bill Wahl 19:50

Yeah, we're not, it's it really won't having it open or closed, it's high enough up, it doesn't constrict the water. Um, it's really about what could happen if there was a bunch of debris or a huge surge of water down there damaging the bridge, or if it got up high enough and the bridge was still open and there were people on it, vehicles on it, the risk to the risk to humans that could be up there when something happens. So yeah, it's just a precautionary measure, but trying to be cautious and conservative to make sure that we protect our assets and protect the people that live in the area.

Jeff Cranson 20:23

What's the situation in terms of snow belt across most of the north region? Is it mostly gone? Is that not as much of a factor anymore?

Bill Wahl 20:30

That appears from my driving around to be pretty much gone. There's you'll still see a little bit of snow on some north-facing slopes here and there, especially further closer up to the tip of the mitt. Um, but in most places, the snowpack is pretty well gone. So that's helping our situation. When these the last the first rains occurred and this flooding started, there was still a pretty hefty snowpack across much of northern Michigan, which was really helping to make the problem that much worse. And on top of it, that snowpack was a really heavy, wet snowpack. We had a fairly substantial blizzard and ice storm that hit about a month ago that wasn't our typical northern Michigan, light fluffy snow. It was heavy, wet snow with a lot of water in it. And up by the Magnai area, they had almost four feet. Um, there was a lot of snow, a lot of water that was sitting on hills and sitting on top of frozen ground. Um, the other aspect that you have is because that snow was all sitting there, the ground underneath it wasn't fine out. So you had frozen ground underneath it. So when it did start raining and the snow did start melting, instead of being able to drain into the ground, it was all running over land, or most of it was running over land, um, which put that much more water into the into the streams, into the the lakes, the swamps, all those things than what would have happened had the ground been ground been thawed out when that same rainstorm occurred.

Jeff Cranson 21:51

Yeah, and I should mention um in that context that while um I'm focusing today on what's going on in the north region because that's kind of ground. Zero for the damage. We do have uh flooding affecting bridges in other parts of the state. Further south, uh, the Grand Region, certainly Ionia County. Um, Metro Detroit, as always, when you get these kinds of series of deluges, um, the freeways flood, and um all the pumps and generators in the world aren't going to matter if there's no place for the water to go. Um, it just takes some time for it to recede. And in the upper peninsula, you've got uh bridges and roads being affected by this too. So um it's really all over the state.

Bill Wahl 22:31

Yeah, the thing that really struck me yesterday when I was out looking at stuff is we were looking at looking at a dam in one of the areas, and the water level on the back side of the dam and the front side of the dam, there's only about a six-inch differential between the water. That's right. Yeah, and the dam was full all the way to the top, but it was full all the way in front of it as well. Um, which just that's not normally what you would see at most dams. I mean, there's typically multiple feet of differential, and here, I mean, there's just so much water that even on the front side of the dam, everything was full.

Jeff Cranson 23:08

Well, Bill, we'll check in again probably over the next uh few weeks as uh as you do get a chance to assess things and find out um when you're gonna be able to rebuild those sections of the the really busy, I guess, uh important roads. But uh is there anything else you want to mention for people to know about what's going on up there?

Bill Wahl 23:28

Not right now. I think we're just other than if you see crews out, if you see roads closed, listen to the sign. The sign is there, the barricade is there for a reason, not for you to move it and drive around to go because it doesn't apply to you.

Jeff Cranson 23:42

Because people do that.

Bill Wahl 23:44

Because people do that all the time. And driving through flooded roadways, they may only look like there's a little bit of water. There can be a lot more than you expect. It can cause cars to get pulled off the road, stall out, have lots of different issues. So avoid driving through those areas, listen to the signs. If there's crews out there, give them space, let them do their job. They're trying to take care of things as quickly as they can. Um, but they need time, they need space, they need to be able to do their work in a safe environment.

Jeff Cranson 24:13

And despite your where you're talking about some of the renegades who do move barricades and try to drive around them, for the most part, I'm seeing indications of a lot of appreciation for the people doing the work. So that's a good thing.

Bill Wahl 24:24

Yes, very much.

Jeff Cranson 24:25

Yeah. Okay, well, thanks, Bill. Thank you. I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jacke Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.