Rainfall leads to over 5 feet of water in basement of Lafayette Township resident

LAFAYETTE TWP. — As rain fell throughout the day and ice melted on Thursday, Lisa Knight of Lafayette Township prepared for the worst by unplugging everything in her basement and moving things to a higher floor. "I knew my basement was going to flood and the yard due to the amount of rain we were supposed to get," Knight said. When Knight left the house at 7 a.m. Thursday, water was already building up in her backyard. By the time she got home at 4 p.m., there were two and a half feet of water in the basement. Knight had to unplug everything that was in the basement, along with turning off the gas and hot water tank. From the time she got home to the time she went to bed, the water had risen an additional 3 feet. With the drop of temperatures from Thursday into Friday, all of the water outside began to freeze and turn to slush. Inside, the walls began to freeze. "This is the first time this has really happened when it's been this cold outside," Knight said. Knight moved into her house in 2015, but the flooding didn't begin until 2019. That year, her basement flooded two to three times. In 2020, it flooded twice and then in 2021, it flooded four to five times throughout the year. The amount of water that fills up in her basement depends on the amount of rain the township gets. "Sometimes when it doesn't rain as much, it could be a foot or less," Knight said. According to Knight, there are a few contributions that have caused the flooding in her basement. With a pond across the street, Knight said that the water drains underneath her property, filling up her yard. According to Knight, her yard was level with the pond due to the amount of rain Thursday. "The water just comes in and you have to wait until it goes back out," Knight said. "There's nothing you can do in the in-between time." With the colder temperatures, Knight was unsure of how long it would take to go back out. As of Monday, the basement was dry. After the water rose more on Thursday, Knight and her kids left the house Friday morning to stay at other places until the water went back down and they could turn the gas and electricity back on. Knight has still not moved back into her house, and the gas and electricity remain off. Although the basement was dry as of Monday, the warmer temperatures melted ice that was in her yard and rain added to the water. Water began filling her basement as of Monday afternoon. "We're trying to figure out what to do because we can't go back," Knight said. Knight attended the Lafayette Township trustees meeting Monday to discuss what was happening to her basement, in addition to talking to officials of Chippewa Lake to see what she can do about selling her home. "When there is a lot of snowmelt and we get rain on top of the snowmelt and there's ice and snow that are blocking storm grates and blocking ditches and so forth, it certainly makes flooding problems worse," said Dan Willhoite, civil engineer III for the county. Willhoite said that in addition to the snow and ice blocking drains and ditches, the frost on the ground prevents the rainfall from going into the ground. As Knight works to figure out what her next steps are, she's hoping to figure out a solution to get her and her kids out of the house she lives in. "I'm ready to move out of my house because it's really not safe to be there," Knight said. Contact reporter Sara Crawford at (330) 721-4063 or scrawford@medina-gazette.com.