- [Narrator] Local production seen on Delta college, Public Media are made possible with support from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(saw churning) These are images of recovery.

- Yeah, there was a bathroom and a bedroom on this corner.

- [Narrator] Recovery from one of the greater disasters, the Great Lakes Bay region and the State of Michigan has ever seen.

Well over a year has passed since the dams on Wixom and Sanford lakes were breached on May 19th, 2020, following a significant rain event.

- [Man] Oh my God.

- [Narrator] Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the disaster had a devastating impact on lives and property along the Tittabawassee river corridor.

Recovery efforts began as soon as they could.

First, the cleanup that went from days into weeks, then months and beyond the first year.

There are two types of recovery, the physical and the emotional.

- [Man] Thank you so much for being part of this.

Use our strength in numbers.

Use our strength in this community to continue to grow.

(somber music) - [Narrator] In this program, we'll look at efforts to start to put things back together, to help people recover emotionally and the community move forward.

(gentle music) Eric Clark,his wife and daughter live just south of the Tittabawassee river, on the west side of Midland.

Their home was heavily damaged in the disaster and has been torn down.

The Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy or EGLE, and the city of Midland permitted Clark to rebuild on the same spot.

But they required him to build his foundation above the baseline flood elevation level set by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

- [Eric Clark] - That will work.

- [Narrator] Anne Wortley has been assisting the Clarks in her role as one of the disaster case managers with UMCOR, United Methodist Committee on Relief.

Support for the case managers and the flood recovery funds have come from United Way and the Midland Area Community Foundation.

- Well, we had just paid the house off a month before the flood, so we owned it.

A lady I know that we've actually worked for, told me about Anne and she's been great.

Absolutely great.

And here we are.

Pretty soon I can start building.

That'll be good.

Hopefully we're out of that freezing weather, but we'll see.

We made it through last winter.

So.

- Disaster case manager meets with the flood survivors, takes a look at the damage, and then we put a plan together to help the flood survivors recover.

And then we go in front of a funding committee once a week.

And we just tell the story about what has happened to this family.

So we just give a narrative as to how long they've been in the home, how much water they had in the home, how much they've done, or what they've done on their own to recover and how we can help them recover the rest of the way.

- I'll tell you the biggest thing I learned is, you have to be humble and accept help, that was rough on me, but you have to do it.

But sometimes you have to swallow your pride and accept help.

And again, Anne's been great.

This wouldn't be going on without her.

It really wouldn't and those involved with her.

So you can have an open loft area up in this corner on the second story.

- [Narrator] Anne has also been helping Midland residents, Karen and Tom Teague rebuild their house that once stood above the river.

The Teagues currently living in a camper in their yard, spent much of last winter in a hotel after their water froze.

They decided to raise the foundation of their new home a few feet above the required level.

- Just for our peace of mind, we'd build this house up five feet higher than the old place and the river can do whatever it wants and it and flow through the foundation.

And we don't have to worry about it.

- FEMA sent us $35,500 for all our loss.

And later when I met with Anne, she helped me to get contents loss, which came up to $6,347.

So all that money, plus a little more went to pay for the new foundation, which was almost 49,000.

So we've saved money.

I sold my IRA, all our retirement money, anything we had saved is for this.

- Yeah, this is such a nice spot.

It'd be a shame to leave it.

- Mm-hm!

- [Narrator] In response to the 2020 disaster and a flood in 2017, the city of Midland is considering improvements to the sanitary and storm sewer systems and a stream cleaning program.

The city, Midland County, the Midland Business Alliance, Four Lakes Task Force, and other entities are also exploring efforts to mitigate the impact of flooding in the future.

A few major infrastructure projects have already begun.

Over the winter, EGLE lowered the Tobacco River spillway on the Edenville dam on Wixom Lake.

- The state of Michigan, the dam safety program has stepped in under its emergency order authorities to take actions to mitigate risks that we feel are present for the dam.

The primary risk that we're concerned about is the stability of the embankment.

So the spillway here, what we're doing is actually lowering or modifying the concrete structure to lower the elevation of the spillway and therefore lower the water surface elevation within the lake.

Looking on the Tobacco side, below the dam, as you can see, there's no river flow.

So our goal here in re-introducing flow is that we're gonna be able to re-establish a river and system on the Tobacco side.

In re-introducing flow to the spillway here, we're also reintroducing flow back into the river for about a mile that was running dry after the flood.

As far as environmental natural resource impacts, this is a very significant step forward.

But again, these are just interim measures, Four Lakes Task Force and all of the local stakeholders are working on trying to determine what the long-term plan will be for this dam.

- [Narrator] During the summer of 2021, work on the Tittabawassee river spillway on the Edenville dam started.

This project is being managed by the Four Lakes Task Force.

- Right now we're on the Tittabawassee side of the Edenville dam.

And what we're doing here is similar to what was done on the Tobacco side.

We're lowering the spillway and putting an embankment in to the divert the water to get back into the channel of the river.

And then we're stabilizing all the dam to protect it from future heavy rains.

And that puts us in a stable way to kind of run the dams until we can restore them.

In the Northern dam, Secord and Smallwood, they're fundamentally were ordered down after repair and inspection, and it's still gonna take until 2024, if everything works well to bring those lakes back up in terms of getting to the full lake levels.

These dams are gonna take longer, probably this dam here with Wixom to 2026 and Sanford 2025.

And then the second thing we have to do on Wixom and Sanford was we have to develop a restoration plan, because these dams failed and it's really transformed the bottom land.

So we have to have a program around the wetlands that were lost, the stream and shoreline mitigation, fish habitat, and all those issues have to have a plan in place with EGLE before these dams will come up.

- [Narrator] Four Lakes is the delegated authority working on behalf of Midland and Gladwin counties.

The counties now own the dams and bottom lands after acquiring ownership from the prior owner, Boyce Hydro.

A major project in the fall of 2020 was the removal of the tons of debris that stacked up against the Sanford dam during the disaster.

- [Bill Gebo] -The majority of what was built up behind the dam that we had to remove were trees and branches and parts of trees and so forth.

We took out 75 truckloads of trees.

It was pushing 2000 cubic yards of material.

And we accumulated a very large pile of busted up dock sections.

We've had at least a couple of truckloads of aluminum and scrap metal, which primarily is coming from the boats that we've recovered, that had been damaged.

And a variety of other smaller things.

- And then the material that's able to be salvaged that will be going back to owners of the property, will be up here on the platform.

It will be cataloged and then the owners will be contacted if they've put their forms in for being able to reclaim their property.

They will be potentially finding things that haven't been claimed and working with 911 on MC numbers for boats.

- It's huge to get the debris cleaned off the dam.

It shows significant progress for the village of Sanford to see the debris removed.

It was a catastrophic event and a lot of debris was left against the dam.

It's very symbolic to get that moved off there, so we can move forward.

- [Narrator] Several bridges had to be restored or rebuilt.

The Saginaw Road bridge and the US-10 bridge in Sanford, the Curtis Road bridge in Edenville and the two M-30 bridges spanning the Tittabawassee river and Wixom Lake.

All of these bridges are critical for general transportation and emergency response.

Starting in November, 2020, the Four Lakes Task Force began the first of several projects to address the issue of erosion that put many properties in jeopardy.

- Sanford and Wixom Lake have the worst erosion problems.

When the dam breached, all of the water in the lake drained out in a little over an hour.

And as that water came rushing out, it started carrying all the sand and gravel away with it.

We went from having a nice well-developed shorelines, stable shorelines, to one where suddenly a lot of the sand and gravel had been washed away.

And the remaining shorelines were being eaten away by the little bit of river that we had left flowing along the bottom.

In other places in the lake, houses that were along the lake shore and thought they had a nice stable shoreline in front of them, suddenly found themselves sitting on cliffs, 20 feet high, with a river running along the base of those cliffs, gradually chewing away the rest of that cliff.

These homes are in danger of being damaged by the continuing erosion of the earth that was holding them in place.

We need to come in and rebuild these shorelines and stabilize them with rock so that they don't erode any further.

And we can keep them stable until the lakes come back up.

What I can tell you is that right now I can point to almost $5 million in erosion repairs that we have been approved to do.

Three quarters of that 5 million is gonna come from the federal government.

We're gonna come up with the remaining one quarter.

Some of that's gonna come out of an appropriation the state of Michigan did for us.

Some of it's gonna come out of the pockets of individual homeowners.

We've got 120 properties right now that we're repairing around the lakes.

We expect that more erosion projects will show up.

We expect that $5 million number to grow.

But I think we've seen the majority of the cost of projects that we're gonna be doing, at least once we'll be arranging this year.

- [Narrator] Another concern is the bottoms of the lakes.

That's now a year round worry for Bob North, Emergency Management Director for Gladwin County.

- Right now we're on the Tittabawassee river in the area commonly known as Wixom Lake.

Our broad concerns is about the current conditions that exist now and through the rest of the year into spring and summer on the lake bottoms.

As an example of some of the dangers out here, you see a small stump like this, okay?

This stump is deeply into the ground and it's like kicking a rock.

That is a danger if you hit something that speed.

And it's like this the entire length, every bit of the river bottom, from Secord Lake, all the way down to Edenville and down the Tobacco as well.

If something happens on this river, the big concern is number one, is anybody going to see them?

And then are we gonna get the correct location so that the emergency vehicles, emergency crews can respond to the correct location?

Spring comes, we'll have meltdown.

The snow goes away, the rains come, the ice moves.

Everything becomes muddy.

The obstructions are still there.

The ground will have changed because it's winter time.

So we'll face the issues once again like we did this last summer with a lot of mud, obstructions, drop-offs, it's gonna be a different type of challenge, but the dangers are still there.

The main message to communicate is one of safety.

We don't want anybody hurt or killed out here.

There are a lot of challenges, especially where there's vehicles involved.

Or if you're on foot on a thin ice with that moving water under it, which has now channelized.

And as you can see, it's not very thick right now, even though it's there.

We want people to be safe and avoid the danger.

The only way to be safe out here is to not be out here.

- [Narrator] What may be happening beneath the ground is also a major concern.

Dan Meihls, a well driller from Standish is working a job on a property, a half mile east of Wixom Lake.

- When the floods come through, the first problems was, water being higher than the wells and getting down in and contaminating some of the wells as far as bacteria and stuff like that.

So the wells that did make it through, I mean, a lot of them had to be chlorinated to take care of the bacteria and everything.

Put chlorine down them, pump it through the system, leave it sat for a specific amount of time and then pump it out and then test your water for bacteria.

One of the other things that the flood coming through, naturally it took the dams out.

And when the dams went out, the water levels dropped in all the lakes, and a lot of the surrounding wells, the shallower wells, the water levels dropped low enough that they were either dry or very little water in the bottom of the well, so you get very little production.

Our health department, they figured there was over 400 wells that were effected by it.

Later on, I heard that there was between 700 and 750 wells that were affected by it.

The cost for repairing what was done with the water.

Some of them you go into and you can just replace maybe a few fittings and a pressure switch.

People can get by for a few hundred dollars.

And it goes all the way to replacing wells, which, I mean, some of the wells were probably up as high as 10 to $12,000.

And in any area that I know of, at least in Michigan, I don't know of anything to come close to this as far as how many wells that affected in every way.

- [Narrator] A local engineer has developed quite a following online for keeping an eye, well, several eyes on what's been happening along the rivers corridor since the disaster.

He creates video reports and post them on his YouTube channel to keep the community updated.

- I started this YouTube channel just to document kind of our family vacations.

And then once I seen the flooding happen here in Sanford, I knew that I had to document this for historical purpose.

So future generations understand what happened here.

I started documenting here at Sanford dam, and then I realized that there was just so much more devastation up to the north from here.

So I grabbed my drone and my GoPro and just started filming everything that I could possibly from Sanford dam, all the way up to Secord dam.

Completely gone here.

Was all the way up to there, you can see over right here on the screen.

That is how much water used to be up here.

And then that let go, just start dropping, minutes, it's gone.

As soon as I started posting the videos here of the flooding, I did get a lot of local people that were interested in the story and just kind of keeping up to date.

After that, it started to bloom into a kind of a worldwide phenomenon.

There's people watching all over the world.

Currently I have over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube and there's been a lot of support.

Some of these people have even donated to my channel.

All the money that I make from YouTube and donations gets funneled back into my channel.

Today I just got done installing another live camera that's gonna be overlooking Sanford park and the backside of the dam.

This will be the fifth live camera that is streaming 24/7 on my YouTube channel.

My goal is to attach two more YouTube live stream cameras though, up on Secord and Smallwood dam.

After that time, I will have live cameras on all five of the dams.

I'm very proud of this being my contribution to the community and that so many people are continuing to watch from around the world.

Just completely covered in trees.

- [Narrator] Denny Sian owns the Sanford hardware.

His downtown store was heavily damaged in the disaster and eventually torn down.

- To me, it wasn't like a typical flood where the water comes up and goes down.

This was like a river flowing through the downtown and through our store and everything in the store was like pushed up to the front and you could tell the path of the flow and then busted out the front windows and no telling how much stuff went down the river.

And there was mud everywhere.

You just could not imagine the kind of destruction.

And we didn't call anybody.

Never called one person to ask for help.

Just didn't have to.

They were there every day.

There were some times 50, probably 50 to 75 people.

If you were there by yourselves or just my family and a few employees, I think you would give up.

We tried to save as much product as we could, but probably lost 90% of it.

And the buildings were damaged severely enough, that to rebuild them was just would not have been cost effective.

So we made the decision to tear them down and decided to build the new store in that same location.

The cost of just the building alone is about 1.2 million.

And that doesn't cover the cost of the inventory.

You know, the inventory was a complete loss too.

And another great thing about Sanford, this building is owned by Mike Rudy and within a day or two of the flood, he'd come down and gave my son keys to the building and said, "It's all cleaned out, whatever you guys want to use it for, it's yours."

So we decided to try to set up a small hardware store, more of an essential hardware as we look at it.

We don't have gas grills and room for a lot of lawn equipment and things like that.

But we wanted to have the essentials, the plumbing, electrical, and things that people really need and turns out really need bad when their house is just flooded.

You didn't have a store like ours in the community.

Every time somebody needed a PVC fitting, they have to run 10 or 12 miles to maybe Midland and go in a box store just to get that, especially right now.

People are remodeling their houses.

A lot of these people haven't did that before, so they're not real good at it.

And so they'll be in here five or six times a day, we're trying to help them through projects, but they just don't know what things are even called or what sizes and we're trying to help them with that.

So to be close is really handy.

You know, it's really handy.

- [Woman] Hi.

- [Man] Hello.

- [Woman] Hi.

- [Man] What you after?

- [Woman] I need more paint.

- [Woman] Hi Kim.

Hi.

- [Narrator] A new Sanford hardware was built downtown on the site of the old store.

It reopened in the spring of 2021, due in part with support from the Midland Business Alliance, the Three Rivers Corporation and local foundations.

Just down the street, The Red Oak restaurant also was restored and reopened with support from the MBA and its partners.

Melissa Ayotte and her dad, Kevin are the owners.

- So this is the last thing that you can see to where the water came in at.

They figure about seven and a half foot.

And I walked in the back door and I just walked back out.

It was terrible.

So it took me a while to come in.

(sobbing) And then I just stood in the middle for awhile and then went and sat on the sidewalk.

It was mainly the mud.

I don't even think it would have mattered how much you tried to clean it.

It was just such heavy muck that there was definitely no salvaging anything kitchen related.

So it just must've been such a force to come through.

Honestly only saved the top part of the bar.

Nothing else was salvageable.

We joke about it now because I always said, "I wanted to update," just not quite to this magnitude.

Thankfully, we were lucky because our building was sound.

So we had the option to come back here and we owned our building.

So it was no question that we would not rebuild right here.

My dad has said numerous times that if it wasn't for me he doesn't know if he would have done that.

He's doing this for me, 'cause this is my legacy and my future.

- [Narrator] Stryker's Marine, a very visible business on Wixom Lake is now a marina without a lake.

They too were damaged when Wixom Lake flooded before the dam breached.

Despite the loss of the lake, they're still in business selling and maintaining watercraft.

- We were here for oh three or four hours moving things until it just got to a point where we were in waist high water and didn't feel it was safe to be here anymore.

It's depressing to see it.

We look out and there's no water in the lake and there's no boats at the slips.

And so it's tough, but we just have to do what we can.

Our customers have been just a huge support for us.

One story that this guy called me up and he was from Virginia.

And he said, "Hey, I just saw on YouTube about the dams breaking.

And I just watched all the videos.

And I see on your website, you have this particular boat for sale.

I'm coming to buy it.

Don't sell it."

When he got here, he just said, "I saw what happened and I just wanted to come out and support you guys's business."

And he really felt for our situation.

And so it was really cool.

We were fortunate enough to be part of the restoration program from the Midland Business Alliance, where we got our service department, some renovations done on the service department and on the store itself and our gas docks, which had kind of washed out and undermined to the gas dock.

Lots of help.

So you're gonna install these battery cables.

The renovations on the service department were pretty big for us.

We're trying to get to a year round service department.

We also added another service bay on the service barn.

And so we're just trying to ramp that up a little bit more, getting M-30 opened up, having the bridge put in that was a big deal for us.

We got our drive by traffic back and that's key.

It's a lot easier to get to us now.

So we're just gonna really focus on right now, the sales and the service, and we'll get back to doing the rest of the stuff when we get water back.

(engine revving) - [Narrator] Bill Vasicek's A-frame cottage was also flooded.

It's located on one of the cuts on the east side of Wixom Lake.

Back in January, 2021, work was still being done on Bill's home.

He too got some help from a long-term disaster case manager.

- We had a whole list, I had 350 names of individuals and you just start making phone calls.

And so Bill was one of those cold calls that I made one day and said, "Hey, by the way, I'm a disaster case manager.

Is there anything you need?"

- Because of the flood, I had retired completely January 1st of this year.

And my plan was to live here in the summer and somewhere warmer in the winter, with sticking on my money back into this place.

This is where I'm gonna live here around now.

It came up so fast and it backed up so much that it came up over the front deck and into here.

And then it filled up my furnace duct work and all that.

And I lost pretty much everything that was on the first floor.

So I lost all the cupboards, all my sink.

I don't have anywhere to wash dishes.

I lost this stove and refrigerator, but I've got replacements.

Lost a washer and dryer in the back room, which I haven't replaced yet.

The furnace, the hot water heater, the lift station pump out in the yard for the septic, all your electric, all your plumbing, all the floor, all the furniture, everything that was on the floor.

And matter of fact, when we gutted the home out, you had to gut everything out because everything was wet.

And it was already starting to get moldy just a few days after, 'cause we had that hot weather afterwards.

So the mold issue was an issue we had to take care of in a hurry.

I have about a $50,000 damage to the home that we've estimated or that we think it's gonna cost.

And that's not counting any damage I have that I've lost out in the yard.

That's just the home.

After the house was damaged, I had nowhere to go.

So the theory was just stay here.

I camped in the yard for the first six months.

It wasn't until November that I was able to move into the house enough where I've got the heat on and the water works and a toilet and a shower.

So it took that many months just to be able to move back inside.

And of course it's still not finished.

It's just the way it is.

[Carla] - It wasn't just about making sure he could get back in his home.

It was getting him connected to people in the community.

And his advocate, he's been to dinner at their home.

He's had some of his construction people take him hunting.

And so those pieces are as important, if not more important really than getting built back in his home.

- Having a case manager, disaster manager, she's getting me more money.

The first time I applied to FEMA they've gave me $17,000.

And since that time they've increased it by another $4,400.

And we're still working on another appeal which they might give me some more to help out.

Maybe I won't have to go through as much of my savings as I thought.

-[Mark Brown] - Monday, they're coming out to measure for the countertops.

- Good.

- [Narrator] In may of 2021, Mark Brown and his daughter, Stacy Summers, were still working on the Sanford Lake house Stacy and her husband rented from her parents.

It was swamped by Sanford Lake after the Edenville dam breached.

The Brown's home located further north on the lake was also overwhelmed, leaving the family with two homes to rehab.

- This is the house my daughter lived in and it had about five feet of water in it.

So we ripped out all the drywall, sub floors, the flooring, all the appliances, everything, she basically lost everything.

So this house was down to the studs.

We're working on rebuilding it, and you can kind of see how far we've gotten so far in a year.

- We decided to have my grandma move in here.

My grandfather passed away in October and that kind of left her on her own.

So we're currently in the process of rebuilding this home to a livable state, so that she can move in here.

And my husband and I ended up buying a place in Midland.

The plan right now is stay there a couple of years and then kind of reassess where we're at with everything.

- [Mark} -So our main house that we live in, we actually been back in that house about three days after the flood, because we had looters and stuff.

So we got to the point with all the dirt and everything to where my wife and I could live in it.

But we stopped working on that one and we're concentrating on this one.

Once we get my mother-in-law moved in here, then we'll start working on our house again.

But it's livable now.

We just are just living on sub floors and dirt.

We lost two houses.

So couple hundred thousand dollars.

We got a little bit of money from FEMA.

And we took out a loan through the Small Business Administration and we took money out of our 401k.

So that amount of money isn't really enough to pay contractors to do everything.

So we've been doing probably 95% of the work on our own over the last year to rebuild houses that we already built once.

- I've never been more proud of them.

I'm like, I knew my folks were just strong and resilient, but holy crap, they just kinda take it on the chin and keep, keep rolling.

You know, like you have to, but I'm really proud.

- [Mark] Well, I would never want to go through it again, (laughs) it wasn't any fun.

- The list of things that I've had to kind of learn how to do over the last year, is just getting longer and longer and longer.

Need any demo work done, I'm your girl.

It turns out I can tear a house apart like nobody's business.

I could help you install your cabinets, cut and lay.

Subflooring, cut and hang drywall.

I had my hand a little bit at mudding, but it's not really my thing.

So you'll have to find someone else to help you out with that.

I can help you run electrical line if you need, help you lay wood floors.

I did a lot of these beautiful wood floors on my own.

Shoot pretty quick here, I'll be able to help you tile a bathroom and painting, installing tub.

A little bit of plumbing work if you ever need help with that.

(laughs) It's taken so much to get this house into the state that it's in.

But looking back on it, everything from that week, that first week, especially, last May, still feels like it's right behind me.

Like I could step right back into it.

It's kind of a weird feeling, but it feels like it's taken a long time to get us here.

But it's good to be here with floors and counters and all that good stuff.

- [Narrator] The rebuild following the disaster has been emotionally challenging.

Community leaders have held several events to keep people's spirits up.

Last fall, different individuals and organizations sponsored a drive-through meal service in downtown Sanford.

- Tonight, we're here distributing hot meals for the residents of Stanford, Midland, Gladwin, all the surrounding areas that were impacted by the flood waters.

Right now, we're doing it two nights a week, where we were giving out 150 meals a one time a week, and we've upped that to twice a week.

And we're now doing 200 meals a week.

This is just a collaboration of a whole bunch of different organizations and people that are helping.

We have churches and civic groups, such as Kiwanis.

We have just people from all walks of life are coming and helping.

You can see how many people are working behind me.

Every time we do this, we have anywhere from 10 to 20 to 25 people that show up to help us.

The folks that are lined up, they start lining up about 4:00 - 4:10.

Sometimes we've had them here as early as 3:30.

So I would go out and say, "We're not gonna start serving until five."

And they're like, "We know, we know.

We want to get in line.

We're happy to be here."

And by the time we start to serve, there's a line all the way down and circle back around waiting.

We see the same people time after time.

And they're residents from Stanford right here downtown, all the way we have people come from the Wixom Lake area.

So Gladwin county, we have people from Midland that come every week for the meals.

This isn't happening because we're going out and asking for donations and sponsors.

This is happening because people are coming to us and asking, "Are you still doing meals?

Can we still help?"

And we have to do it.

We can't say no, because every night when we're handing out meals, we're told by different people, different families.

We'll have an 80 year old man tell me when I'm handing him a meal that he's so thankful and so grateful that we're still doing this and that he's not forgotten.

(women laughing) How many meals can I get you?

- Three meals, please.

- Three meals?

Okay.

- Yes.

- [Woman] Three here.

- Thank you.

- Here you go.

- [Woman] Thank you so much.

This is so appreciated.

- [Narrator] In December, 2020, a small holiday Memorial event called Sanford Shines, morphed into a large community-wide celebration and remembrance.

- [Leah Lollar] -The Sanford Shines project wanted to do something down here 'cause this whole block was wiped out during the flood.

- We said, let's put a few Christmas trees down here, memorialize the homes that were lost and the community took a hold of it and it just grew into something bigger than any of us.

- I sorta wanted to do something just to show our support.

And I like to think of projects for John to do.

And this looked like a good one to me.

So we would just want it to support everyone down here and our net poor neighbors that are not there anymore that lost their houses.

- We just decided to do this Christmas tree project as a family, help brighten Sanford up.

- [Leah] - I'm doing this tree to honor Carrie Hennig.

She was a respiratory therapist that was from our town here.

She worked at Covenant in Saginaw, but she was from here and she caught COVID on the job.

And I just feel that she deserves to be honored as a hero.

She was on the front lines, fighting for people, helping them breathe, helping them stay alive.

And I just wanted to do something really pretty for her, and so people know the story and remember her.

Down this way and then turn it- [Anna]-So the events tonight are going to include a little parade that starts at the IGA and marches this way.

There's a color guard, there's some music, some local politicians and Santa Claus is coming.

(alarm blaring) Santa Claus will arrive here.

He will light the tree for us here, the community tree.

(people cheering) From there, it just becomes a drive-through event.

People can just drive slowly through on a one way track and taking the trees.

[Gayle] -I think it's just good for everybody's spirits.

And especially right now at Christmas time and with COVID, I think the town and the community is, they've just been wonderful to try and support everybody around here.

It's been pretty wonderful.

♪ Spirits up ♪ ♪ Here tonight...that's enough ♪ It's to encourage those who are still in the trenches, still digging back and hope that we can go forward.

It's celebration of how far we've come so fast together and its outreach.

It's a cry to shine to the community and ask for help that we still need.

- [Narrator] This spring a now twice weekly pop-up market in Sanford was organized to help local vendors and to encourage people to visit downtown.

To commemorate the first anniversary of the May 19th, 2020 disaster, community events were held over several days.

(upbeat music) Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Dow CEO, Jim Fitterling, participated in a cleanup day, because there's still debris scattered across the disasters footprint that has never been touched.

A group of high school students and their principal from Meridian Early College High School, also helped out.

- We were approached to contribute to the Sanford rising and over 115 kids stepped up today to lend a hand out here and, and support the community.

- I'd say I'm proud, proud of everyone here and the community for fighting through this and everyone sacrificing their time to help everyone else out.

- This looks like a log book from a dog groomer Got dog types and everything she did for years to every dog in here.

- We found this today.

- Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

These are all...Oh my gosh.

These are all my notes from all my dogs all the way back to 2019.

Oh my gosh.

That is so cool.

Thank you.

I like finding things still, even if they're a little.

So thank you very much.

- [Crowd] "Sanford Strong".

- [Narrator] On the one-year anniversary of the May 19th, 2020 disaster, the Veterans Memorial was rededicated following a year long effort to rebuild it after it was destroyed.

(crowd clapping) A second Memorial honoring first responders was added because of their lifesaving efforts.

(crowd clapping) At this event, the song "Sanford Strong" was performed by a local couple Yvonne and Kurt Cormier.

♪ 'Cause We're Sanford Strong ♪ The term "Sanford Strong" was first coined just after the disaster, when a group of women launched a Facebook page where people in need could ask for help.

- "Sanford Strong" has just become a different version of itself.

I mean, we're not in a situation where we have emergent cleanup needs.

We're still in a role of trying to keep the community together.

We still send help when people need it.

You know, it's just that the urgency is different.

Well, we became a 501 C3 non-profit, so it allows us tax exemptions, but it allows it so that we can give donations directly to individuals and not just to other nonprofits.

So we've been collecting funds for the last year.

We've raised around $120,000 and we have helped purchase building materials with that money.

We've purchased truckloads of drywall and had drives.

And we're gonna be dispersing grants this year to homeowners with some of that money.

So the adrenaline rush is settled and we're still working together with the community and work.

But it's a lot more fun now.

It's more like, we have a event coming up on August 1st, the Pop-Up Palooza that's coming up and we're working on fun things now.

And some things that are not so fun, but they're not.

as tragic.

Because of the way the community came together, I think we're in a really good spot.

We're a lot better off than I thought we would be in just a year's time.

So I'm really proud of it and I'm really proud of everybody 'cause it's the best town in the world.

- [Narrator] Another one of the founders of "Sanford Strong" is Martina Ricards, a counselor who has been monitoring her community's wellbeing.

- I just knew as this was happening, that this was gonna be a long haul thing.

And I think particularly in Stanford, there's kind of a culture of grittiness and hardiness and just pushing through and doing the best with what you can.

And so I started doing just kind of some mental health checks at people's homes, just asking them how they're feeling.

But it's hard for them to ask for help.

And it's particularly hard for them to ask for mental health treatment because it's so stigmatized.

I try to make people, make it known that I'm here and that I have connections in the community if people want to talk more.

- [Narrator] The recovery from the disaster is going to be a long haul.

The big questions often asked are When will the lakes come back?

How much will it cost?

Who's going to pay for it?

An independent forensic team engaged by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released an interim report in September, 2021, on the possible physical causes of the dam failures.

In the IFT's opinion, the most plausible principle mechanism for the failure of the Edenville dam is "static liquefaction", the instability of saturated loose sands in the downstream section of the embankment.

- [Man] There we go.

There's the rush.

- [Narrator] They are not certain what triggered that, but recognize that the record lake level almost certainly contributed.

A final report will be released later.

The lawsuits to determine liability and possibly compensation to the people affected maybe years from resolution.

In the meantime, the Four Lakes Task Force is developing a plan to rebuild the dams and bring the lakes back.

- Our key to success right now is addressing four critical success factors.

One of them is making sure we get the funding and the money lined up that we can make this affordable for everybody.

The second, there's a lot of environmental work that needs to be done and planning.

And we're working with EGLE on making sure we can get that implemented.

The third thing is we need to get the flood capacity studies done and the dam capacity set, and reviewed with EGLE.

And the fourth thing is we need to get a assessment structure in place that can support these dams in the future.

And that's fair for everyone.

- [Narrator] Their plan sees the lakes being restored over time by 2026.

To achieve that they're seeking financial support from the state of Michigan and the federal government.

But they have also proposed a special assessment district, SAD, which would require property owners on the Four Lakes to help fund the restoration of the dams and future operations.

This plan is being met with some resistance from a group called "No To SAD."

They object to Four Lakes being the authority in charge and the proposed special assessment.

- I have a problem with Four Lakes Task Force being the delegated authority because I didn't elect these people.

And I really don't have confidence in their decision making process.

I would like to see transparency, a willingness to work with the community, for the community to even have a choice.

Like why can't we be presented a couple of plans?

Are the plans set in stone?

What's the governing criteria?

You know there's all these questions that we all have that no one gets input in at all, because it's controlled by a very small group.

And what's also discouraging is when you call your local government representative, they have no idea, because they have washed their hands of it and that just doesn't make sense to me.

You have this group of private citizens who aren't accountable to anything or the tax payer, they're not voted in.

And it's like, how are we here?

- We're not opposed to the lakes coming back.

The "No To SAD" is we don't want to pay to have the lakes come back.

We didn't create this mess.

It wasn't our responsibility and then to put it on us, is unfair.

It goes against what a special assessment district is.

Because there's multiple people that will benefit from the lakes coming back.

The problem is, is those people aren't paying for it, only the victims that live around the lake.

- And so what I don't think is fair is that you asked me to pay an exorbitant amount because I live here.

Meanwhile, anyone else in the state, the community, the United States of America or the world can use this lake for free.

And I just don't agree with that.

And I got a lot of skin in the game, so I want you to pay dearly to use this lake if I have to pay for it.

But asking the victims of this to pay for it.

And I don't want to say victim like, "Oh, poor, woe is me" because I mean, I like living on the lake and I am willing to kick in some money.

But I shouldn't have to pay everything that I have.

Currently, the way it is, I believe my new retirement date is when I'm 89, ahh, due to the disaster relief loan that we pay.

And now on top of that, you're gonna ask me to pay a SAD also.

I mean, I was on schedule to retire at 70ish, but there's 19 extra years there to pay my bills.

And like I said, is it worth it to me?

I can make a choice, I can sell, I can leave.

But I love living on a lake.

I mean, it's everybody's dream, you know.

- They keep talking about looking going forward right now with our dams.

They haven't even figured out what happened in the past to cause a problem with the dams.

So before we can move forward, we really need to figure out what happened to get to where we're at right now, so that never happens again.

But putting that cost and responsibility on us, that's not gonna take care of the problem, because we didn't create this.

- [Narrator] A group with a different viewpoint is "Restore The Lakes."

They support the work of the Four Lakes Task Force, and what's been proposed.

- The counties of Gladwin and Midland have said, "We don't have the resources to tackle this project."

And what they've done is they've delegated the authority to the Four Lakes Task Force.

Which is made up of volunteers from each of the lakes that are all again, for the most part, either retired or at the kind of the tail end of their careers, but they have a lifetime of experience and a lifetime of business that they're applying as volunteers to solve this difficult issue.

The wrap is none of them have ever built a dam, fair statement, but they don't have to know how to build dams.

What they have to do is figure out how do we deal with complex problems?

How do we multitask and have different things moving in parallel paths?

And how do we reduce critical points of failure?

For those folks who have a hard and fast rule that say, "No special assessment," that's their right.

I respect it.

Your objection is for property owners to have a very, very high, special assessment that for some of the lakes, primarily Smallwood, Wixom and Sanford is made up of what it's gonna cost to rebuild those dams.

In the case of Smallwood's to restore it.

That's a big price tag for those property owners.

What we're trying to do right now is work with our elected officials, particularly here in Michigan and at the federal level to get federal support.

And when successful, that will help pay to rebuild and restore the dams, which is gonna reduce significantly the special assessment for the property owners.

So a number of us were sitting around, having a conversation about what else can we do?

And we all agreed we could write letters, but what we realized is we needed to help thousands of people to write letters.

People wanted to engage, they just didn't know how to do it.

They didn't know who to call or who to write or what to say, or even if anybody would listen.

So we created a website, RestoreTheLakes.org, and it's a place that people can come as homeowners to understand the issues from a standpoint of what we can do to help ourselves, how we can work with our elected officials.

It provides the names and contact information for elected officials, along with some simple talking points to make it easy.

And the most wonderful thing happened.

Through word of mouth, this website now has rippled through all four lakes with all four lake associations supporting the mission of restoring the lakes and all four lake associations making their members aware and helping their members go to this website to get this information.

This has never happened before anywhere.

There's no playbook, there's no policy manual.

There's nothing that says what to do.

- [Narrator] All over the effected areas, lake residents are helping themselves by organizing cleanup crews.

On a weeknight in June, 2021, a group from the Wixom Lake Association held a community cleanup event to remove debris from the lake bottom near their home.

- A big picture is really just trying to get the debris and the logs, anything that's loose here that could end up in the dam system off the lake bed and get them as clean as they can, so that the people that are gonna be doing the work on the dams, that's not gonna be one of the things they have to worry about.

So we're finding docks, we're finding steps, we're finding metal parts, we're finding wood.

So it's a little bit of everything.

So we're trying to separate some of the things for the landfill and the wood, so that's easy for the taskforce to pick it up.

A couple of weeks ago when we were out here and did our first event, it was very easy to see everything.

It was all pretty bare ground.

It was pretty easy maneuverability.

As you guys saw today, when you were walking around the first 50 yards now is covered up by a lot of foliage and it's becoming more and more difficult to navigate.

The one thing about the strategy that was good about it is it brought people together.

We've been doing a lot of social events like this, just trying to get people together and say, "Hey, we can't do this without each other."

Just trying to get people to invest in the community, right?

Just saying, "Hey, stop complaining about all the things that are going wrong.

Let's start doing something positive that we can control."

We can't control all the negativity, but we can control what we do out here together.

This is probably the most proud I've been about the way the human spirit has been.

'Cause I've seen people come together here like I'd never seen before.

- [Narrator] For the people who live on the lakes, it's been a difficult decision to sell or stay put, given the uncertain future and the costs involved.

Pat and Nonny Domine's home on Wixom Lake wasn't destroyed in the disaster, but it did cost over $100,000 to repair.

At first, they considered selling their place, but have since decided to stay at least for now.

As a result of the disaster, they say their neighborhood as become an even closer knit group.

- Our neighbors have been great.

We all help each other out with projects.

That part of it's been positive.

[Pat Domine] -In some ways our neighborhood is stronger.

There are only seven of us on the street that live here year around.

But some of the summer people have also been very helpful in helping us restore.

And they don't particularly care about their place because it's just a cottage and they don't need to have it restored now because they can do it gradually.

And they don't care if they come up here and spend time because the lake's not there.

And that of course is why they originally bought a cottage on the lake.

So all in all, we have a better neighborhood than before the flood.

[Pat] -A lot of the times drink my coffee and just visualize it as it used to be.

And think back about some of those things and actually sort of see the lake there.

And I still see it sort of as the lake.

It's not just the empty spot for me.

I never thought I'd miss the whine of the bass boats and the six o'clock in the morning on Sunday for a best tournament.

But I do.

[Laughs} - [Nonny] There's no sense dwelling on it because you can't do anything about it.

[Pat] - This probably sounds a little bit crazy to you, but in some ways the flood has helped me.

because it helped me to realize what's important in life.

Is not too much your possessions and the things that you have physically as the emotional side of your life.

Is who you love and who you care about and who your friends are and the things that you're able to do.

And then it takes something like the flood to point that out to you.

Some good comes of everything, they say.

There's some legal issues probably involved.

Because that lake bottom doesn't.

- [Narrator] To purchase a DVD copy of this program or of "Breached" Part One, please visit DeltaPublicMedia.org.

Or call 1-877-472-7677.

(water flowing)