Metro Detroit Basement Backup Watch

Live flood alerts, the 48-hour rain outlook, and river levels for Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, read the way a basement owner needs them.

Data refreshes every time you load this page · last checked just now · This is an informational readout, not an official alert. For warnings and emergencies, follow the National Weather Service Detroit and local authorities.

Active flood alerts

The next 48 hours

River levels, and why calm rivers can fool you

Most metro Detroit basement flooding is not a river coming over its banks. It is rain falling faster than the sewers can carry it, and in at least 33 communities on combined or partly combined sewers, the same pipe that takes the storm also takes the sewage. That is why the rivers can read normal on a night when thousands of basements take water, and why a "low risk" FEMA flood zone says almost nothing about your basement. The gauges above are context, not clearance.

What to do with a yellow or red readout

Before the rain: run your sump pump with a bucket of water so tonight is not the night you learn it died, clear the storm grate at your curb, move anything you love off the basement floor, and if you have a backwater valve, check that it moves freely. Most of what protects a basement during a storm costs little or nothing and happens before the first drop.

During: stay out of standing basement water until you are certain the power is off at the panel. Sewage-tinted water is a health issue, not a mop-up issue.

After: photograph everything before you touch it, then start the clock. Most metro Detroit sewer-backup claims run through a 45-day written-notice deadline, and missing it usually ends the claim before it starts.