Several communities across Mid-Michigan are still dealing with flooding after wet weather over the weekend, and with more rain on the way, high water levels continue to be a concern.
As of Monday evening, flood warnings are still in place for Holt, Ionia and East Lansing after the region received nearly two inches of rain on Saturday.
The National Weather Service warns communities near rivers, like East Lansing’s Red Cedar, are more prone to flooding.
East Lansing Mayor Erik Altmann says it’s hard for the city to prevent flooding because there’s not enough funding to improve the city’s infrastructure.
"Our infrastructure isn't built for the kinds of storms that we're getting— that we're going to continue to get— and fixing the infrastructure is a really, really expensive problem," he said.
Altmann says East Lansing has been working on its Wet Weather Resiliency Plan to track flooding and improve storm infrastructure.
Through research done for the plan, the city found precipitation in the East Lansing area has increased by 30% since 1949.
That statistic is reflective of statewide trends.
Meteorologist Ernie Ostuno is with National Weather Service in Grand Rapids. He says, for example, the Grand Rapids area has seen 12.35 inches of precipitation so far this year. Typically, the city only has gotten 7.61 inches by early April.
"We’ve had almost five inches above normal," Ostuno said. "Not quite double, but considerably above normal."
East Lansing leaders are expecting the trend of increased wet weather to continue, and the city has identified 58 areas that are more likely to flood.
To address the problem, the Wet Weather Resiliency Plan is setting goals to increase the capacity of storm drains in East Lansing, to improve storm sewer overflow and waste water treatment as well as to reduce non-draining surfaces across the city.
But that's in the long term.
In the short term, the National Weather Service says more flooding is possible next week, especially in communities near rivers and streams like East Lansing.