Royal Oak Residents Add 'Brown Water' To List Of Complaints After Flooding
ROYAL OAK (WWJ) - Flooded basements, power outages, damaged trees and delayed trash pickups. Now, there's a new problem some Royal Oak residents are facing after last week's historic rainfall: brown water is coming out of the tap.
Residents in the neighborhood near Coolidge Highway and Normandy Road are being told not to drink the water until the problem is fixed, which is expected to happen some time Friday.
Pamela Curtis, who lives in the area, said she contacted city officials Thursday afternoon after noticing the "rather disgusting water" coming out of her faucets. She ended up speaking to a police officer.
"It was something to do with a valve replacement, I don't get into the technical terms there, but he said it may be staying brown through the morning and he said please don't used the water," she said.
This week has been especially hard on Curtis' neighborhood. She said a power line has been down for days has been ignored, even though it was reported.
"I guess we will wait for an accident for emergency personnel to respond," she said. "We have had curbside garbage for a week and now our running water may not be used because it is brown... Of course, I could pretend we are on vacation."
City officials say their garbage collection is about five days behind, but extra crews will be out Saturday to help pick up the slack.
Last week's storms dumped over six inches of rain in some places and left five major freeways under several feet of water, forcing thousands of people to abandon their water-logged cars. Tens of thousands of homes across the metro area were flooded, some with several feet of water in the basements.
Governor Rick Snyder is urging people who've suffered property damages due to the flooding to report their losses as soon as possible. He encouraged residents to document their losses with photographs and receipts and then file the materials with their local governments.
"Reporting damage is a vital step in applying for federal aid to get Michigan residents back on their feet after last week's devastation," Snyder said in a statement.
Once damage assessments are submitted to local governments, the information will be forwarded on to the state.
For more information, visit www.michigan.gov/miflood.
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