Michigan Flood Threat Eases; 1,400 Evacuated as Dams Fail

Swollen rivers that destroyed three dams and threatened four others in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula began retreating Friday, but at least 1,400 people were still under evacuation orders, officials said.

The 18-county area hardest hit by the storms that dumped up to 13 inches of rain on the state and killed at least five people was declared a disaster area by Gov. James J. Blanchard, making communities in the region eligible for low-interest loans.

The three-day series of storms moved out of Michigan early Friday. No additional rain was forecast in flood-ravaged areas until at least Monday, meteorologist John Hughes at the National Weather Service office in Ann Arbor said.

About 400 students at Northwood Institute in Midland were taken to Red Cross shelters after floodwaters from the Tittabawassee River entered dormitories, officials said.

Evacuations at Belding, a town of 5,600 people, began about 5 p.m. after a dam upstream began showing signs of failure, endangering two dams downriver, an Ionia County sheriff’s spokesman said.

In Newaygo County in west-central Michigan, about 1,000 residents living as far as 30 miles downstream from Hardy Dam were asked to stay away from their homes because of continuing concern about the dam’s strength, officials said.

Leaks were spotted Thursday in the 100-foot-high dam, which is owned by Consumers Power Co., but a spokesman for the utility said the dam was holding together despite concern about spillway erosion.

Two more dams were breached Friday, officials said. A concrete dam south of Rockford collapsed at 2:15 a.m., forcing partial evacuation of the village of Belmont, and, in Gratiot County, an earthen dam crumbled shortly before 2 a.m., forcing at least 20 people from their homes. One dam failed Thursday.