MIDLAND, Mich. (Reuters) – Increasing floodwaters unleashed by two dam failures submerged parts of the main Michigan town of Midland on Wednesday, displacing thousands of citizens and threatening to flood a Dow Chemical Co plant in the riverfront city.
By late morning, floodwaters had reached the grounds of the Dow center and were confirmed to be “comingling with on-site containment ponds,” the company stated in a statement, including no workers had been injured.
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of “deadly” flooding as water levels of the Tittabawassee River in Midland, about 120 miles northwest of Detroit, increased to historic levels.
” Never ever in my entire life have we seen the dam fail,” stated Mark Bone, 53, an entrepreneur chairman of the Midland County Board of Commissioners. “It flooded genuine bad in ’86, however never like this.”
Even as flooding submerged parts of Midland, the county seat and house to some 42,000 locals, under 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water, Bone said no injuries or deaths had been reported.
With authorities already coming to grips with the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Gretchen Whitmer o