DEARBORN — The contents of 40 percent of Dearborn’s basements are now on its streets in piles of trash bags and disposed furniture. unprecedented rainfall on Aug. 11 caused sewage backups that turned 8,000 basements across the city into swamps of filthy water.

Thousands of basements in Dearborn have been converted into living spaces over the years. Attorney Tarek Beydoun of Meridian Law Firm said it does not matter if a permit was obtained to fix the basements when it comes to compensations.

“If you did not have the permit, it does not mean there wasn’t a loss,” he said. “If you did work without the permit, you violated the law, but it’s not the most serious crime. The city doesn’t seem to be concerned with that.”

Beydoun said he hopes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would get involved and reimburse the people for their losses. In 2000, FEMA gave  a total of $170 million to more than 85,000 people in metro Detroit who experienced sewerage backup. 

He explained that FEMA at the time paid for damaged belongings, not only home repairs. Beydoun urged residents to file insurance claims because FEMA would not pay if residents cannot prove that they were denied by their insurers. 

The Meridian Law Firm held a town hall meeting last week, which was attended by hundreds of people, to inform residents about the steps they should take following the flood.

Beydoun urged governmental help for residents to disinfect their flooded basements before they become a major health risk. 

The city of Dearborn, like many surrounding municipalities, has declared a state of emergency after last week’s floods. So did Wayne County. Gov. Snyder issued a state declaration of disaster for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

The emergency declarations are an open door for federal intervention. 

Wayne County opened a Multi-Agency Resource Center (MARC) at Dearborn’s Ford Community and Performing Arts Center for Wednesday, Aug. 20. MARC connects victims of the flood with nonprofit and governmental agencies that provide them with relief tools and tips.

The Salvation Army distributed hundreds of buckets of cleaning supplies to residents at MARC on Wednesday. Representatives of the American Red Cross, Michigan Community Service Commission, the Wayne County Health Department, the Department of Human Services and the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) were on hand.

The Department of Human Services is providing income-based flood resources— from clothing to shelter to food— for those in need. 

If residents suspect that they are wrongly not being covered by their insurance, they can file a complaint on DIFS’ webpage http://www.michigan.gov/difs. 

A representative of DIFS explained that once the department receives the complaint, it determines whether the resident was covered or not, based on his policy. If there is any wrongdoing by the insurance company, DIFS informs the insurer in writing, urging it to comply with the law or legal action could be taken. If the resident is not covered for flooding or sewage backup, the department explains the policy to the complainer.

Carol Austerberry, director of the Environmental Health Section of the Wayne County Health Department, urged sewage backup victims to use bleach to disinfect their basements. 

“Use one cup of bleach to one gallon of water,” she said. “Bleach does it.”

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, residues of sewage water can cause health issues, including respiratory infections, asthma attacks, fatigue, headaches and rashes.

“Everything drowned,” said Leila Khafaji, a Dearborn resident whose basement flooded last week. “The washer, the dryer, the water heater, the fridge, the furniture, we had to throw away everything.”

Khafaji said she also lost powers for two days, so she had to throw away all the food in her house.

“We cleaned with bleach and all sorts of detergents, but the basement still stinks,” she added. “The drywalls need to be changed. Nobody helped us; nobody cares. The insurance said we don’t have coverage for floods.”

Khafaji estimates her losses at $25,000. She said she spent $5,000 on finishing her basement.

Zeinab Hassan, who sounded even more frustrated, complained of the “absence of the government.

“When we can’t pay our taxes, they kick us out and put the house for sale at the county,” she said. “When we need the help, they disappeared. I have been in this country for decades. I haven’t made a single insurance claim. I haven’t taken a penny in government assistance. 

But the insurance does not want to cover us and the city is absent.” Hassan said her basement flooded with a foot and half of sewage water, enough to ruin the basement she recently remodeled and break her appliances. She added that the mold is still growing on the walls despite her cleanup efforts. Both Khafaji and Hassan filed a complaint with the city but have not received a response. 

Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. urged citizens to “work together and be patient” and take things step by step, starting with clearing and cleaning their basements until the compensations issue is determined at the federal level. 

He said the city is trying to help residents to the best of its ability. 

“We are doing everything we can. We’re spending over $1 more than we had budgeted,” O’Reilly told The Arab American News. “We brought in extra equipment, extra trucks. We have people working seven days a week, 10 hours a day. I don’t know what else could be done. This is an extraordinary event. People have to understand, this has never happened before in Dearborn. We’ve never had this many homes that flooded at one time. We’ve never had this much rain in any recorded period over a two-hour time. This was a very unusual event.”

O’Reilly said that the city also worked with nonprofit organizations to help seniors and disabled residents clean their basements.

The city is employing special big, yellow trucks to pick the disposed items from flooded basements off the curb.

The mayor added that about 8,000 homes have suffered from the flood in Dearborn, but the damage exceeds residential properties to include business establishments whose operation could be affected for the long term because of the flood. As an example, he cited the case of Oakwood hospital, where parts that were damaged by the flood has to be rehabilitated, re-inspected and recertified. 

As for federal monetary help to the victims, O’Reilly said residents and city officials will not know if FEMA decides to step in until the first week of December.

He said the affected municipalities filed their damage assessments with the state, which is likely to formally apply for federal help soon. FEMA will then make a decision based on a “firm review of the application.”

The mayor explained that FEMA looks at the severity of the situation before deciding to step in; and that the problem is that the area does not have a large number of houses that became uninhabitable because of the storm.

O’Reilly added, however that an extraordinary number of people were impacted.

“When you look at how many people were affected, the nature of the impact and how much disruption of business occurred, you realize this is unprecedented.” he said.

O’Reilly said if federal help does not come, the city would only reimburse residents for their damages if it is proven that it was responsible for the sewage backup. 

“There are rumors going around that everybody is going to get a check with x amount of money; that is not how it works,” he said. “We investigate to see what was the proximate cause. Now with this thing, the proximate cause was way too much water, but beyond that we still look at if there was blockage or some other problem that contributed to it. Sometimes it’s the actual property owners, where they have in their connection to the city services blocked by some tree roots. Those decisions are made based on actual evidence.”