Detroit Historic Flooding: Major Interstates Were Closed For Days After Historic Rainfall Event; Three Dead

- Detroit's wettest day in 89 years flooded at least five freeways

- Some roads were closed for days; copper theft blamed for some pump failures

- At least 1,000 cars and likely thousands of basements flooded

- Auto production slowed due to flooding-related disruptions

Three died and thousands of motorists were caught on flooded freeways and streets Monday as Detroit and its suburbs were inundated with record-shattering rainfall during the afternoon rush. The last remaining stretch of shutdown freeways, northbound Interstate 75 just south of the I-696 interchange, finally reopened Wednesday evening, two days after the deluge ended.

Across Detroit, businesses closed their doors and allowed employees to go home. Tiffany Gatewood said Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly plant near Warren sent her and other workers home early Monday night. On her way home, Gatewood's Jeep stalled on a flooded entrance ramp to Interstate 696 and she had to swim to safety.

"I've never seen anything like this," the 27-year-old said. "It's like the world is coming to an end."

(PHOTOS: Historic Flooding)

Police said a 100-year-old woman was found dead in her flooded basement Tuesday in the suburb of Warren, just north of Detroit, according to WDIV-TV. 

The woman's daughter was concerned about her welfare and went to the home to check on her, said Warren Mayor James Fouts.

Fouts said the woman appears to have drowned. A cause of death was not immediately available, and Fouts did not release the woman's name.

On Monday, a 30-year-old Sterling Heights woman died when she went into cardiac arrest after her car became trapped in three and a half feet of floodwaters near the intersection of Van Dyke Road and Old 13 Mile Road, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Bystanders pulled her from her vehicle after seeing her suffer seizures and took her to a nearby business where she was picked up and taken to a hospital by firefighters. She had no vital signs at the scene and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

At least one other person was injured when their car was swept away by rising waters.

More showers and thunderstorms moved through southeastern Michigan Tuesday afternoon, bringing about a quarter of an inch of additional rainfall.

(MORE: Detroit Forecast | Interactive Radar)

Freeways Flooded, Cars Abandoned

More than 1,000 cars were abandoned across the Detroit area overnight after dozens of high water rescues and evacuations for higher ground. Others opted to spend the night in their vehicles, trapped by floodwaters that submerged countless roads across the area.

Portions of the Ford Freeway (Interstate 94), the Chrysler Freeway (Interstate 75), Interstate 696, the Southfield Freeway, and the Lodge Freeway closed Monday evening and remained closed into Tuesday as water was slow to recede from many below-grade sections, especially at underpasses.

Michigan State Police advised motorists to avoid all non-essential travel on metro Detroit freeways, according to the Detroit Free Press.

By Tuesday evening, some stretches of freeway appeared to be drying out while others remained flooded. Parts of I-75, I-696 and the Lodge Freeway were still closed.

Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) spokesperson Diane Cross told the Detroit Free Press that the pump infrastructure used to keep water off roads was "overwhelmed" from the deluge, which caused water to pool up on freeways in metro Detroit.

Cross told Crain's Business Detroit that valuable copper pipes had been stolen from several pumping stations, compromising their ability to remove water from the freeway system. MDOT did not discover the theft until now, Cross said.

The freeway closures may last for days, according to the Crain's Business Detroit report, as engineers inspect affected roads for safety.

But MDOT said there is no estimate of when I-75 at I-696 in the northern suburbs would reopen, and recommended avoiding I-696 near and east of I-75 through Warren until further notice because as Lt. Michael Shaw told CBS Detroit, there was still "about 12 feet of water that's in the interchange."

Each flooded area needs to be cleaned and inspected before reopening, according to MDOT. That includes removing the hundreds of abandoned cars along the roadways. Warren, Michigan, mayor Jim Fouts told WWJ-TV that there were more than 1,000 cars left abandoned on the flooded roads in Warren alone.

“We’ve got a lot going on. It’s not just the water on the roads. We can’t clean up the roads, we’ve got to get the cars off the roads,” MDOT Spokesperson Diane Cross told the Detroit Free Press.

Michigan State Police announced that they had sent dive teams to search cars for bodies at the bottom of inundated freeways, the Associated Press reports. Lt. Michael Shaw said that the divers were used as a precautionary measure and that no one had been reported missing in the deluge.

Large Area Affected by Flooding

A swath taking in the western and northern sides of Detroit proper and the adjacent western and northern suburbs appeared to be hardest hit. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of photos and videos posted to social media of flooded neighborhood streets and major thoroughfares.

Basements flooded in thousands of homes in metro Detroit, according to the Free Press.

Photos of flooded basements surfaced on social media from all over metro Detroit, including Detroit itself and the suburbs of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Highland Park, Hamtramck, Oak Park, Ferndale, Berkley and Rosedale. Basement flooding was also reported in Huntington Woods, according to the National Weather Service.

About 17,000 DTE Energy customers remained without electricity Tuesday afternoon, according to the utility's Facebook page. The company's website showed a concentrated cluster of outages in the suburb of Dearborn.

In Royal Oak, the Detroit Zoo was closed Tuesday after heavy rains and flooding damaged facilities and equipment, including the Arctic Ring of Life exhibit that houses polar bears, seals and arctic foxes.

"All animals are secure and there are no concerns with animal welfare at this time," the zoo said in a statement.

Automobile production slowed Tuesday as flooding affected several facilities.

Four Chrysler plants - including one in Detroit and three in the suburbs of Warren and Sterling Heights - were flooded Monday.

The company halted operations at its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant at 9 p.m. Monday night and released employees again Tuesday morning. Chrysler said road closings caused by flooding have slowed deliveries and caused high absenteeism.

Three other Chrysler plants were running Tuesday morning, but at a slow rate. Chrysler expected to resume normal production at all four plants later Tuesday. 

General Motors closed its Tech Center in Warren on Tuesday because of flood damage. The company told the 19,000 engineers, designers and others who work at the 330-acre campus to stay home while facilities are cleaned. Some employees began returning to the campus Tuesday afternoon and more will be called back Wednesday, GM said. Priority was being placed on operations that directly affect customers, including call centers and OnStar operators.

GM spokesman Bill Grotz said the flooding didn't appear to cause severe damage to the historic campus, which was designed in the early 1950s by architect Eero Saarinen.

Historic Rainfall

"I've lived in this area 40 years, and can't ever recall all the major expressways closing for flooding like happened in today's storms," said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology for The Weather Channel's sister company, Weather Underground.

This observation was backed up by Detroit native WDIV-TV Local 4 meteorologist Paul Gross.

"I have lived my entire life and worked my entire career here, and I have never seen as widespread a flooding event. I also remember some individual intense thunderstorms that flooded one freeway. But I don't ever remember every freeway being flooded out."

Some of the heaviest rain came in the 6 p.m. hour, when 1.24 inches of rain fell at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in just 24 minutes, part of a record-breaking 4.57 inches of total rainfall for the day. It is the second-heaviest calendar-day rainfall on record in the Motor City, behind only a 4.74-inch deluge on July 31, 1925.

In Oakland County, a spotter reported 6.25 inches of rain over just 12 hours in Southfield.

Despite measuring its snowiest winter on record earlier this year, breaking a 133-year-old record, Detroit's precipitation total for 2014 to date was near normal before Monday's storm.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.