Heavy Rain In Bay City Causes Localized Flooding

Street and Basement Flooding Present Some Challenges

July 22, 2008       2 Comments
By: Stephen Kent

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By the standards of the floods experienced in the Midwest over the past couple of months, the rain in Bay City on July 22 wasn't much. But for for a short time many people were thinking about building arks.

The weather radar didn't look too bad when the National Weather Service issued the thunder storm warning. Then the rain started and the bottom fell out. The rain gauge showed almost three inches in just 30 minutes.

Street drains just couldn't handle the load and water was over the curbs in many places. Reports from Essexville said that man hole covers were being blown off as the storm sewers were overwhelmed.

The low spot on Thomas Street on the west side was a small lake. One car was stalled out and the five o'clock traffic coming in was searching for the shallowest spot to ford the flood. Taking the side street wasn't much help. More than one drive ignored the warnings to not drive through flooded areas then found themselves in a stalled vehicle in the middle of a small lake.

Throughout the area basements were flooding. Fortunately the downpour was short lived and most places drained in a few hours. But for the staff at the Bay County Historical Society's Museum it was a potential crisis. The museum basement contains a large part of the collection and this downpour was just too much for the water control systems.

The call went out at about 5:15 pm. About a dozen museum volunteers plus members of the Red Cross Disaster Team joined the museum staff in the basement of the building to assess the problem. In the lowest part of the basement, water was about six inches deep but only a few artifacts were in jeopardy.

The assembled volunteers were organized to move huge stacks of old County record books to a dry location so that the few books at the bottom could be removed for drying.

Overall it was an exciting afternoon and evening. It makes you really appreciate the disasters faced by real floods like those in the Midwest.

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DON'T BE TEMPTED. You don't know how deep it is!


OK, so this guy thinks he can make it.


Yep, it's THAT DEEP! You knew better, didn't you?


Bay County Historical Society's Eric Jylha





Staff and volunteers move county record books


Drying out the few artifacts that got wet


Quick thinking and volunteers minimize the damage.

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Stephen Kent
Steve Kent and his family have lived in Bay City for 40 years. He is VP of Technical Services at MMCC which produces MyBayCity.Com. Kent is active in many Bay City civic organizations. More from Stephen Kent

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