Tag: Severe Weather

Staying in the Know with Severe Weather

Posted on by Carolyn Demates

Recent severe rain events prompt me to provide this update. It’s important to be in the know, even when we might not always want to be.

Nixle Alerts

Clinton Township has an emergency notification system that provides residents Emergency Notifications via text message or email.  The system is called Nixle and is specifically designed to provide Township residents important updates on things like severe weather, unplanned road closures, real-time public safety notifications and important community alerts.  

Signing up is quick and easy. Just text your ZIP code to 888777 from your mobile phone. Once sent, you’ll receive a confirmation text and can customize your alert settings by creating a free user profile at www.nixle.com. All alerts are targeted geographically, meaning you’ll only get messages relevant to your area within the Township.  This free service will keep you informed by delivering alerts and other urgent township advisories straight to your phone or email.

Nixle is trusted by over 7,200 government agencies across the country and has exclusive partnerships with NLETS, Google, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the National Blue Alert Network. This ensures both unmatched data security and an expansive reach for emergency and community information.

Whether it’s a safety advisory, missing person alert, or important township notice, Nixle is designed to keep you connected when it matters most.  

Here is a recent video with Trustee Bruce Wade on Nixle.  As a former Police Chief, Trustee Wade was helpful to our team when we revised our policies on when and what types of alerts should be sent, which is sometimes, a delectate balance.  We don’t want to bombard people with texts or emails regarding useless information, but do want to provide our residents with helpful alerts and emergency notifications.  While this policy has helped guide us on many of these judgment calls, Nixle is also partnered with the National Weather Service and those alerts happen automatically and sometimes come more frequently than most people prefer, but that is only in the case of severe weather.  

 

Perspective on Flooding

When it comes to severe weather, I want to dispel the myth that the Township has emergency pumps that will somehow alleviate flooding and redirect stormwater.  The township has the responsibility of maintaining a sanitary sewer system that takes wastewater from our sinks, toilets and shower drains away and directs it to a county and regional system for treatment by the Great Lakes Water Authority.  While stormwater does have an impact on that system, the township has made great strides at considerable expense, in building additional retention capacity and tightening up our system to reduce rain and ground water from infiltrating the sanitary system.  

Stormwater drainage is an entirely different system.  When your home was built has a significant role in determining stormwater flow.  Older neighborhoods are mostly gravity fed to direct run-off to the catch basins in the neighborhood along the street, which then flows to a series of drains or flood plain areas that then flow to the Clinton River and then directly to the lake.  Since all public roads in the township are under the jurisdiction of the County Department of Roads, those systems also fall under their jurisdiction.  

Newer homes, mostly built in the ’80s or after, usually have rear yard drains that were built to be maintained and fall under the jurisdiction of the homeowners or neighborhood associations, if they exist.  

In both cases, the storm water system required in older versions of the building code, were built to accommodate 10 year rain events, which were considered to be more normal at the time.  People also change the grade at their home, or they plant trees in the backyard that can damage those rear-yard drain pipes.  However, even with that, accumulations of standing water mostly dissipate within 72 hours.   In areas where they don’t, the Township may be able to help.  While the Department of Public Services may not be able to solve the problem for you, we may be able to help you identify what might be causing standing water, and provide you advice on what you can, should or must do about it.  Calling DPW at 586-286-9300, or emailing me at p.gieleghem@clintontownship.com, is a good place to start.  

In all of this, it is important to recognize that whether you believe in climate change or not, objective science concludes that it is real and increases in severe weather is the result.  This summer, so far, our community has faced two severe weather rains that exceeded the 100 year event threshold.  If this is the new normal, the infrastructure costs exceed any local governments capacity to resolve.  Whether we like it or not, two things are certain: 1) water seeks its own level and 2) solutions will require both public and private resources.      

Please let me know if I can be of service on this or other Township related matters! 

Respectfully,

Paul Gieleghem
Supervisor