Flooding in Dearborn Heights Thursday, April 9.

DEARBORN HEIGHTS — Residents appear frustrated with city officials over flooding issues in their neighborhood streets and over lack of clean-up services. 

Following the heavy rain storm that occurred on Thursday, April 9, several residents claimed that flooding occurred in their neighborhoods. Houssein Al-Haj Ahmad, who resides on Hanover Street near Michigan Avenue and Van Born, provided photos of his flooded street. 

Ahmad, who moved into the neighborhood a few years ago, said that it has become a normal occurrence for his street to flood multiple times each year. 

“This area gets flooded about 10 to 15 times ever year,” Ahmad said. “There was a study done 10 years ago for them to solve this issue, but the city doesn’t care. They blame it on the county and the county blames it on the city.”

Ahmad noted that he witnessed a Dearborn Heights Police officer driving on his street during the rainstorm, but then the officer decided to stop his vehicle and reverse so it wouldn’t be caught in the flood. He questioned how emergency services would be able to navigate through the floods if residents were in dire need of assistance. 

“From the first house on the block to the end of the block, the street was filled with water,” Ahmad noted. “The water was up so high that we were really close to having a repeat of August 2014. Five or six more feet and the water would’ve gone inside my  house.”

The flooding may have reached severe highs during last year’s massive rainstorm on August 11, which impacted dozens of cities and thousands of homes in southeast Michigan, prompting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to step in for aid. 

Ahmad noted that the majority of Dearborn Heights residents were left without assistance from both FEMA and the city, which have denied  residents’ flooding claims. 

In March Ahmad and other residents attended a study session with the city of Dearborn Heights regarding the Ecorse creek sewer system, which runs through the south end of Dearborn Heights, Allen Park, Romulus and other major cities in Southeast Michigan. Many of these cities have attributed recurring floods in the region to the faulty system. 

Dearborn Heights City Attorney Greg Roberts told The Arab American News that the Ecorse creek sewer system would require such drastic repairs that it would be impossible to impose it solely on the city of Dearborn Heights.

“There has been a lot of studies on the Ecorse creek situation over the years and there is a pending review with the U.S. court of engineers,” Roberts said. “There is nothing related to Ecorse creek and its problems with water running through a flat shallow area that any single community can manage. There’s nothing that Dearborn Heights can do to improve Ecorse creek separately from other communities, it has to be a joint effort.”

The south end neighborhoods in the city aren’t the only areas that routinely see flooding. Running through the city limits are two sanitary sewer systems; the Rouge valley and the Huron valley. These systems run through all ends of the city have also been attributed to flooding in various areas in Dearborn Heights.

Roberts noted that the infrastructure of those sewer systems also need  to be upgraded, but lack of funding on a state and federal level has made it difficult for those systems to function accordingly. 

“You would be amazed at the complexity of the underground installation and frankly, there has been a lack of state and federal resources to assist many of our southeast Michigan communities in providing funds to upgrade infrastructure,” Roberts said. “There are currently imposed higher engineering standards on sanitary sewer systems that everyone is trying to meet. These were systems that were built scores and scores of years ago. They are dynamic in that they operate 24-hours a day, 365 days a week and they have to be operated like that indefinitely.”

This isn’t Ahmad’s first complaint against the city. Earlier this year, his family was left disgruntled by the city when he claimed their was lack of snow plowing services on his street. At one point he noted that plow trucks had left his corner property mounted with snow. The city claimed it needed smaller trucks to plow streets that lead to a dead end. 

“Flood, snow, what season of the year can we live in peace?” Ahmad asked. “I regret the minute I moved from Dearborn to Dearborn Heights. I was thinking of selling this house, but I thought who the heck would buy it? I’d be killing somebody if they bought this house.” 

Dearborn Heights resident and real estate agent Lola Elzein shares the same sentiments. Elzein, who resides near the corner of John Daly and Doxtator, said she also regrets moving from west Dearborn into Dearborn Heights.

“When it would snow in Dearborn, my street would be cleaned by the time I left my house at 7 a.m.,” Elzein said. “When we had an issue with animals, within minutes animal control would respond and take care of the problem. Now that I live in Dearborn Heights, there has not been one year where the snow has been cleaned; and I live near a main street. When we called animal control because of dead animals in the street, it took days for them to respond.”

Elzein said that in recent years, a wave of Arab American residents have moved from Dearborn to Dearborn Heights, but she expects that trend to buckle soon if the city doesn’t work to improve on its services. She noted homes in Dearborn Heights are being bought at above market value, with owners not realizing what’s in store for them.  

“Dearborn Heights has the worst services. Being in the real estate industry, I can tell you that a lot of people are migrating to the heights not knowing what they are getting themselves into,” Elzein added.

Dearborn Heights doesn’t appear to be slacking behind Dearborn in all areas however. 

While residents continue to feel uneasy about the DPW, the city was one step ahead of Dearborn on the business and economical fronts until recently. In the last two years, dozens of Arab American-owned businesses have opened shop along Warren Ave. and Ford Rd., rejuvenating several plaza’s and bringing new customers into town.

Business owners and residents appear to be satisfied with Dearborn Heights officials’ economic development plans and smoother compliance process, while they had complained for years that the city of Dearborn had made business owners jump through hoops. Dearborn is just now starting to experience a renaissance in its downtown district, with the opening of several prominent businesses along Michigan Ave.