Campus bails out after rain floods AA

By David Enders

Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor is still recovering after the city's heaviest rainfall in 20 years flooded roads and buildings both on and off campus earlier this week.

University weather observer Dennis Kahlbaum said 3.58 inches of rain fell on Ann Arbor between Sunday evening and yesterday morning, including 1.6 inches in the span of an hour Monday evening.

"We had some water in the Lawyer's Club, East Quad, Newberry, West Quad, Couzens, Alice Lloyd, Baits, Bursley - just about all of that was in our storage areas," said Archie Andrews, associate director of residence operations.

Student rooms affected included some basement rooms in Baits Residence Hall and a single room in West Quad Residence Hall, all of which needed the carpet removed for drying, Andrews said.

Residence halls were not the only campus buildings that had problems.

"The majority of buildings on campus" experienced some flooding, University spokeswoman Diane Brown said. "We were getting calls from places that we don't normally get calls from."

Students renting houses and apartments off-campus dealt with basement flooding and roof leaks.

CMB management general manager Amy Kahn said her company had been "very lucky" and only had to deal with "a few roof leaks" caused by high winds. The company owns 433 apartments and two houses.

"I talked to a few people who had major problems," she said. "My Realtor took me out to one house - the landlord said they had had major flooding problems on the first floor of one of their houses."

This week's storms topped Ann Arbor's average rainfall for the entire month by more than an inch, Kahlbaum said. Some Detroit suburbs received almost 5 inches of rain Monday.

"A storm like this occurs approximately once in 20 years," Kahlbaum said.