Program Summary 

Disaster Profile 

Beginning in the afternoon of August 11, 2014, a large storm system moved across parts of southeastern Michigan. The system produced record one-day rainfall totals, flooded basements all across the greater Detroit area, and closed major roadways. The Michigan State Emergency Operations Center was fully activated in response. Nationally, a disaster declaration was called for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. It was deemed the nation’s largest natural disaster of 2014.

Our Work 

Our team was on the ground within 72 hours and we quickly launched Project Detroit. Our goal was to help those in the greater Detroit area begin to recover from the damaging floods.

Our initial efforts focused on coordinating with the State of Michigan to organize a central Recovery Coordination Center (RCC). We also focused on establishing one main database for flood assistance requests across southeast Michigan. As we ramped up our operations, we moved into our traditional type of project. By project close, we gutted and sanitized over 400 homes in the Detroit metro area!

Our Impact 

Our team mucked and gutted 401 basements from the offset of the flooding until February of 2015. This was thanks to strong partnerships with the State of Michigan, Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, Mennonite Disaster Services and Americorps National Civilian Community Corps. Alongside our response efforts, we established a rebuild project in January. We have successfully rebuilt five childcare centers and six single family homes throughout the hardest hit areas in Detroit. 

We are one of the few voluntary organizations who actively repaired flood damage in Detroit. We partnered with the Northwest Detroit Flood Recovery Project and worked to repair 16 flood damaged homes by the end of September

We’ve wrapped things up in the rebuild program in Detroit. It kicked off in Motor City, focusing mainly on rebuilding damaged homes. We installed new walls, floors, insulation and ceilings to help these families on their road to recovery.

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