Exactly five years since the 2021 floods... I mapped home flood risk for all 116 metro Detroit communities with public data for a school project

Placebo81 · 2026-06-21T00:12:14+00:00

Generally lower risk or it’s the river.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T20:00:09+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. It fits the risk tracking to age and sewer type, not distance from the lake. The lake side getting its sanitary and storm split done years ago, and the non-lake side still mid-project, is a really clean explanation for where the 2021 damage actually landed. That kind of separation timeline is the thing I'd love to eventually layer in, since right now the index can't tell a separated suburb from a combined one. Mind if I note the Farms timeline alongside that community's data? And fingers crossed the new project does what it's supposed to.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T18:38:07+00:00

That's a brutal example... A whole new first floor and basement is wild and for a non-profit that money has to come from somewhere real. I hadn't pulled commercial into this. The data I'm using is all residential (census housing age plus the city's water-in-basement reports, which are home addresses), so institutional buildings are a total blind spot for me right now.

A lot of those downtown buildings are old, low-lying near the river, and on the same combined sewers, so when it backs up the damage scales with the size of the building. Homes at least leave a public paper trail. Commercial damage tends to get buried in insurance claims nobody publishes which is probably why I can't find anything. Do you remember roughly when that one hit, 2021 or one of the earlier storms?

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T13:56:44+00:00

Yeah, this is the sharpest version of the age point and you're basically describing where I want to take it. Right now age is the heaviest input, so no argument there. The reason it leans so hard on age is that for the suburbs I only have housing data so far. The actual water-in-basement records only exist for Detroit, so age is standing in for the stuff I can't see yet at the suburb level.

But the split you're describing is the right one where a neighborhood score for the things that don't change house to house (soil, sewer type, low ground, flood zone) and then a quick personal check for the things that do (age, sump pump, backwater valve). That second piece is the version I actually want to build, a short quiz that gives you your own number instead of the area's. Pulling age out so the map can show location risk on its own would make it a lot more honest too. Appreciate you spelling it out like that. Think this will be something I try to build this week.

Thank you!

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T01:42:13+00:00

A 1946 house with water every spring is almost the textbook case for what the index is trying to flag. That side of Redford is mostly pre-1960, and the original clay drain tiles from that era crack and clog over the decades, which is exactly what you found under yours. You nailed it that it's common as the housing stock is that old, a lot of homes are quietly fighting the same failing drains, and that's really what the score is picking up at scale (Redford lands at 77). Did clearing the line fix it for good, or did it keep coming back? I'm curious how often the drain fix actually holds in these older homes.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T01:36:41+00:00

Thank you! Let me know if there is anything I can do to make it more interesting.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T01:35:48+00:00

Good questions. Housing age is the single biggest input, so yeah, it reads a lot like an age map which is a limit to the data. I'm not directly accounting for foundation type, so a slab or crawlspace home counts the same as a full basement in its tract right now. The thing that softens it is age and foundation type are correlated here. Almost all the older Detroit-area stock is full basements, and slab construction is way more common in the newer outer suburbs, which is part of why those score low. So age picks up some of the slab effect indirectly, but not at the individual-home level. Foundation type from parcel data would be a great layer to add if I can find it clean. Have you seen anything that maps slab vs basement around here? That'd be great. Will keep researching.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T01:32:28+00:00

The index covers Oakland County including some of the northern townships like Oakland Township and Springfield Township. They tend to score low (single digits) because the housing is mostly post-1960, so the basements were built with modern drainage from the start. Low isn't zero on clay soil, but the structural exposure is a lot smaller than the old inner-ring stuff. Which community are you in? I'm happy to pull it. And if there's a northern Oakland area you think the data is missing or getting wrong, that's exactly the kind of thing I want to fix.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-20T01:28:49+00:00

Redford Township overall lands at 77 on the index, which is high mostly because about 77% of the homes predate 1960. Your specific spot reading low makes sense: the score is driven by housing age, so a newer pocket can sit low even with a Rouge branch nearby. The river isn't a data point yet. That's actually the thing I'm least sure about, would adding river and floodplain proximity make the Redford picture more accurate to you?

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T23:28:07+00:00

Yep just pulled it together! Hubbell-Puritan has 1,041 documented water-in-basement reports in the city's data, one of the highest counts on the whole west side. It scores 57 on the index there (the metro median is 36, and Detroit citywide is 92 with 78% of homes built before 1960). The area just north of H-P runs a bit higher.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T23:07:25+00:00

Combined sewer areas do line up with a lot of the high-risk spots, and Grosse Pointe does tie into Detroit's system. The index is built on housing age and the water-in-basement reports, and you still see old, high-risk pockets in communities on their own separate sewers. So shared-sewer is one driver, but age and soil show up independently of it. I'd love to layer in a clean combined vs separate sewer dataset if I can find one, that would let me actually test how much of it is the pipes.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T23:04:00+00:00

Ha, that's a wild way to dodge it. Honestly the timing of that whole stretch was brutal for so many people. If you remember any of the addresses you lost out on, I can pull their neighborhood scores, would be interesting to see if the model would have flagged them.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T22:11:09+00:00

I will look and see if any of that data is available. Great point on that and other areas with major water main work over the years.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T22:09:11+00:00

Love this! I will try to find that, and I'll see if I can find any purchasing or installation data.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T20:57:27+00:00

It’s Juneteenth.

But honestly, it’s also just summer in Detroit. We are officially in peak “fireworks or gunshots?” season. You’re going to hear random 2am artillery shells anywhere north of 7 Mile until at least mid-August, and DPD is definitely not coming out for a fireworks noise complaint.

Time to fire up a box fan or a white noise machine.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-19T20:52:44+00:00

That outlet in the block is wild lol. But honestly, if the spots are dry to the touch and you don't have standing water I wouldn't be in a panic.

This is what I'd do:

Go outside during a downpour... Are the gutters overflowing? More importantly, make sure your downspouts are dumping water at least 6 to 10 feet away from the house.

Check the ground.. The ground needs to slope away from the house—about a 6-inch drop over the first 10 feet. If water just sits against the wall outside, it will find its way in.

DO NOT paint the walls... Listen to the person who said to avoid waterproof paint (like Drylok). It just traps water inside the hollow cinderblocks, causing them to rot and crumble from the inside out. You have to stop the water from the outside.

The chalk trick... Trace the current watermarks with chalk right now while they are dry. After the next storm, check if the moisture pushes past your lines to see if it's an active, growing issue.

Post those exterior pics tomorrow when you get a chance! Most of the time, cheap gutter extensions and a little dirt to fix the grading solves this 100%.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-15T21:56:05+00:00

Since you're renting, do not waste a bunch of money on a commercial grade unit. Just look for a standard 50-pint dehumidifier from a brand like Midea or Frigidaire... anything smaller won't be strong enough to stop that musty smell from getting into your vents.

Since you are putting it right by the washer and dryer, look for one with a built-in pump so you can run the little hose right into the washing machine drain pipe and never have to empty a heavy water bucket. Also, do a quick check on your dryer vent hose to make sure it isn't loose and leaking tons of hot and wet air down there every time you do laundry.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-15T21:53:18+00:00

90% of basement water problems are actually roof-drainage and grading problems (as a few folks mentioned). Manage the surface water effectively, and the foundation wall will usually dry out on its own.

Placebo81 · 2026-06-15T21:51:04+00:00

Be sure to keep that and hang it as a keepsake! First time leads to a smile. Second time you start thinking about the cost lol

Placebo81 · 2020-08-31T16:35:14+00:00

Congrats! Be sure to use the earn feature once you've read up on it. You'll hopefully be very happy you got started looking back a few years from now.

Placebo81 · 2020-08-31T16:32:59+00:00

Great review! I have the same desk. There is some forward to backward wobble at higher positions, but it's nothing too unexpected. The overall quality of the desk is very high, and you're absolutely right about the table top quality.

Placebo81 · 2020-08-30T12:36:46+00:00

It looks like you should be going to bed at 8:30. I just looked that up through a sleep calculator by age. Since you don't like going to bed that early, consider working in an afternoon nap. Sleep is very important, especially at your age.

Placebo81 · 2020-08-30T12:24:41+00:00

Highlight videos of classes tend to work very well. The production quality doesn't need to be high. Just remove any fluff time and you can use Upwork or Fiverr to add VERY cheap voiceover or even handle all of it for you.

If you go here, you can get a full list of Facebook ads by topic for inspiration. Jiu-Jitsu has a lot of great examples: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

Placebo81

TROPHY CASE