Ann Arbor Water Damage Restoration

Renters outnumber owners in Ann Arbor. 27,544 of 50,499 occupied homes (55 percent) are rented, and 22,955 are owner-occupied.

The median Ann Arbor home was built in 1971.

About 34,502 of Ann Arbor's 54,399 housing units (63 percent) were built before 1980, the era of asbestos and lead paint.

The 1960s is the largest building decade in Ann Arbor, with 10,076 housing units. 8,026 more units (15 percent) are from 1939 or earlier.

Single-family detached houses are 22,624 of Ann Arbor's 54,399 housing units (42 percent). Another 5,653 units sit in buildings of 50 or more units.

The median owner-occupied home in Ann Arbor is worth about $453,400, and median gross rent is $1,649 a month.

The census counts 3,900 vacant housing units in Ann Arbor (7 percent of the stock).

In January 2014 the footing drain work was about 99 percent done in Orchard Hills and Bromley. It stood at Glen Leven 56 percent, Dartmoor 89 percent and Morehead 63 percent.

Ann Arbor runs separate sanitary and stormwater sewer systems. Pre-1980 homes often tie their footing drains to the sanitary side, so heavy rain sends storm flow into sanitary pipes.

In many Ann Arbor homes built before 1980, builders connected the footing drain directly to the sanitary sewer because both pipes sit at about the same depth.

The five original target areas for basement backups were Orchard Hills, Bromley, Morehead, Dartmoor and Glen Leven. Orchard Hills and Bromley are in the northeast and the other three in the southwest.

A city report counted 52 basement backups in the target areas in 2000 and 1 in 2013. The city found that the 2013 backup did not come from its sanitary sewer.

On March 15, 2012 an especially heavy rain caused extensive overland flooding in southwest Ann Arbor, near the target areas. Residents asked whether the footing drain program had made it worse.

In August 2012 Council told staff to negotiate with the Washtenaw County water resources commissioner on stormwater work in the Malletts Creek drainage district, between Ann Arbor-Saline Road, I-94 and Scio Church Road.

The city's sanitary sewer model covers about 400 miles of sewer, and about 67 percent of it is 4 to 8 inches in diameter.

Ann Arbor had a 100-year flood in 1968. The city used that event to set its first floodplain and floodway boundaries.

The city's 2007 flood plan says similar-size floods struck Ann Arbor in 1902 and 1947 before the 1968 flood.

Utility gas heats 35,690 of Ann Arbor's 50,499 occupied homes (71 percent), and electricity heats 13,175 (26 percent).

On June 25, 2009 NOAA logged a flash flood near Ann Arbor with up to 1 foot of water over roads around I-94 and Jackson Road.

On July 28, 2011 NOAA recorded $20,000 in damage from a flash flood in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas. Cars were stranded on Jackson Road and I-94.

On March 15, 2012 NOAA logged a flash flood at Ann Arbor with three to four feet of water on several roads.

On March 15, 2012 NOAA logged 2.00-inch hail at Ann Arbor, and several other hail reports of 0.75 to 1.25 inches that afternoon.

On May 13, 2014 a 65 knot (about 75 mph) thunderstorm wind at Ann Arbor brought widespread tree damage. Some trees fell on homes and did structural damage, for $100,000 in recorded damage.

On the same afternoon in May 2014, a large tree uprooted and fell onto a detached garage in Ann Arbor.

On July 19, 2019 a thunderstorm gust blew down tents at the Ann Arbor Art Fair and injured one person.

The National Weather Service rated the April 15, 2026 Ann Arbor tornado EF-1 with 110 mph peak winds. It ran 1.71 miles, up to 500 yards wide, and touched down at 1:44 AM near Jackson Avenue and I-94.

NOAA recorded $500,000 in damage from the April 15, 2026 Ann Arbor tornado. The worst damage ran from Jackson Avenue through Veterans Memorial Park and nearby homes, with sporadic damage through Virginia Park.

The April 2026 tornado snapped numerous trees in residential streets and pulled metal roof panels from Yost Ice Arena. Part of an elementary school roof blew off.

After the April 15, 2026 storm the city closed all of Veterans Memorial Park because the facilities and ball fields were badly damaged.

Ann Arbor started its footing drain disconnection program in 2001. Repeated raw sewage backups into basements and partly treated sewage reaching the Huron River drove it.

The footing drain program began in five neighborhoods that held about half of all reported sewage backups. By early 2013 the city had disconnected 2,538 footing drains.

A 2003 state consent order made Ann Arbor disconnect at least 155 footing drains a year for four years, 620 in all. Developers must also pay to offset new load on the sanitary system.

By July 1, 2013 the city had completed 1,834 footing drain disconnections, nearly three times what the consent order required.

The disconnection procedure installs a sump and pump to move footing drain water to the storm system. In the Lansdowne area sump pumps did not work in heavy rain, because storm flows and a full storm system sent pumped water back into the sump.

On September 17, 2012 Ann Arbor City Council suspended the footing drain program in the Lansdowne area. A resolution cited creek bed patterns and overland drainage problems there.

On February 4, 2013 Council approved a $968,348 contract for a sanitary sewer flow study to judge the footing drain program.

Ann Arbor joined the NFIP Community Rating System in 2017 at Class 7. It moved to Class 6 on October 1, 2018, which gives a 20 percent discount on flood insurance.

Ann Arbor residents report fallen trees and other non-emergency public works problems through A2FixIt. Downed wires go to 911.

Ann Arbor tests its outdoor warning sirens on the second Tuesday of each month from March through October at 1 p.m. The city decided to keep the siren system.

The city asks residents to sign up for A2 Emergency Alerts and to opt in to Wireless Emergency Alerts on their phones.