Heads up, Midland, MI

[LawBeefaroni]

Dam gonna collapse.

MIDLAND, MI - The Sanford Dam’s collapse is imminent and residents are urged to evacuate, according to a Midland County Central Dispatch message sent out at 7:09 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19.

[gbasden]

That situation sounds really ugly. I hope people stay safe!

[Jeff V]

Crap, I have a plant there...

Wonder what the flood plain is like in that vicinity.

[Kraken]

The only anti-nuclear march I ever went on was in Midland. Internet says it was 1979. That's everything I know about Midland.

[Isgrimnur]

Crap, I have a plant there...

Wonder what the flood plain is like in that vicinity.

Something like this.

[The Meal]

Mom lived less than a mile from the Edenville dam. We kayaked and canoed on both sides in Sanford lake and on the Tittabawassee. It’s a beautiful area (excepting the crazy-ass mid-Michigan people). Fortunately she moved a couple of years ago... into Midland. I haven’t got a hold of her to find out what’s up.

Midland is a pretty cool town. Dow Gardens, the “tridge”, beer scene. Visiting mom is very different now that she’s in the city. Her places in Edenville/Beaverton (she had a home and also some property with lots of outdoor toys) were an experience I’m glad my daughter got to experience. But I felt better once she moved into town.

[The Meal]

I see the evacuation zone, and (for now) she’s well outside of it. Still, having witnessed a millennial flood in 2013, it’s no fun knowing what‘a going on in her life (now and in the months ahead).

[The Meal]

Just got off the phone with Mom. She's high-and-dry and was just prepping to take her husband to the cardiologist this morning. She's concerned about the big hospital in town, though, as that's smack dab in the middle of the flood area.

[LordMortis]

I didn't know I knew people living in Midland until yesterday. Seeing some of the footage. Ugh. So far everyone I didn't know I knew there are safe.

[Z-Corn]

I just found out that my boss and one of my coworkers were evacuated last night. No word from them yet this morning.

My boss has been bugging me to drive over to Midland while we are slow to unload a bunch of old equipment I have stashed in my office in West MI. Looks like that plan is on hold. Our Midland office is just a couple blocks from the river, I'm sure it will flood. And our offices are in the basement of the building...

[Unagi]

Is it too late to save anything before it does ?

[Z-Corn]

Boss just messaged that she is in the office with another coworker and they are moving as much as they can out of the basement and then bugging out.

[Jeff V]

Our plant is apparently on high ground and is doing ok (no power issues or anything). Not sure employees can get to it, though. The plant manager canceled a meeting we had scheduled for this afternoon.

[Smoove_B]

I don't know anything about Midland, MI but the videos I'm seeing online now are incredibly troubling. Here's hoping anyone here with any connection to the are is safe and sound in the days ahead.

[LawBeefaroni]

Dow Chemical is in Midland, they say their containment pools are OK but they also have a superfund site there. Can't be good.

[Z-Corn]

I don't know anything about Midland, MI but the videos I'm seeing online now are incredibly troubling. Here's hoping anyone here with any connection to the are is safe and sound in the days ahead.

Previously I would have described Midland as much like Muskegon but with rivers instead of a Great Lake, minus the stink of Muskegon. But they closed the paper mill in Muskegon a few years ago so, honestly...it doesn't stink as bad anymore.

[Kraken]

Dow Chemical is in Midland, they say their containment pools are OK but they also have a superfund site there. Can't be good.

Probably a good thing they didn't build that nuke plant. Protests didn't stop that; economics did. Midlanders actually wanted the industry and jobs and opposed the march.

I'll spare you a discourse on how my attitude toward nuclear power has gone back and forth over the years, because this isn't that thread.

[LordMortis]

Saw pictures of Wixom Lake this morning. It's... empty. That don't seem right.

Sample

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 233440002/

[LawBeefaroni]

Plot thickens.

After federal regulators pulled the license of a Midland County dam because of the high risk it posed to the public in 2018, it ceded oversight to state regulators.

...

When the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pulled the plug on the Edenville Dam power plant in 2018, it had a perhaps unintended consequence. It put the dam under state regulation, where it was believed to meet less stringent capacity rules and where its alleged efforts to maintain safety exposed it to state environmental regulation.

...

That fight landed the state and Boyce Hydro in state and federal court over the last three weeks. Boyce sued on April 29, charging that it was being unfairly targeted for enforcement. The state later accused Boyce of illegally lowering Wixom's water levels, killing millions of mussels.

...

"Defendants wrongfully exerted dominion over the freshwater mussels and caused their death, which denies and is inconsistent with the State's rights to them," the Michigan Attorney General's Office wrote in its May 1 lawsuit, requesting that the lake bed be restored and further reductions of lake levels be prohibited.

Boyce argued that it lowered water levels in part to conform to federal protocols because of the known threat of a dam failure in a substantial storm. In a statement late Wednesday, Boyce claimed it was pressured by the state as recently as April to raise Wixom Lake levels in order to appease shoreline residents.

[LordMortis]

That's gonna get ugly

[Jeff V]

Feds have been crying wolf for 20 years.

[Blackhawk]

Feds have been crying wolf for 20 years.

Reading that... there was nobody involved, top to bottom, that didn't utterly fail in their responsibilities. And who knows which one will be left holding the bag.

[Isgrimnur]

Taxpayers.

[Jeff V]

Feds have been crying wolf for 20 years.

Reading that... there was nobody involved, top to bottom, that didn't utterly fail in their responsibilities. And who knows which one will be left holding the bag.

It seems more like criminal negligence. When it comes to outsourcing public works to private business, the name of the game becomes saving money.

[Z-Corn]

[hitbyambulance]

THERE IT GOES
THERE IT GOES
THERE WE GO THAT'S THE RUSH