The lawsuit is requesting more than $11.7 million for 10 couples.
GLADWIN COUNTY, Mich. (WJRT) - Families affected by the 2020 dam failures in Gladwin, Midland and Saginaw counties filed another lawsuit seeking restitution nearly three years after the disaster.
The Edenville Dam failed on May 19, 2020, and a torrent of floodwaters down the Tittabawassee River overwhelmed the Sanford Dam, causing record flooding through Midland and Saginaw counties.
The floods destroyed homes and emptied most of Wixom and Sanford lakes, which remain mostly dry three years later.
The attorney in the new lawsuit said its timing is due to approaching filing deadlines, but also underscores that a lot of people are still rebuilding their lives.
"It helps accentuate the plight of the people affected by this flood, who are still many, many years afterwards suffering from the effects," said attorney Jim Rasor of the Rasor Law Firm.
That suffering is laid out in this newest lawsuit filed by 10 couples who live along what was once Wixom Lake. Rasor said his clients' homes were badly flooded and damaged.
"It took their docks, portions of their land, their seawalls and now all of our clients are living on a meadow, where they had a lake before," he said.
The lawsuit has been filed against the U.S. government -- specifically the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- claiming it didn't do enough to make sure that Boyce Hydro and its owner, Lee Mueller, were properly maintaining the Edenville Dam.
"Individual citizens that lived on that lake and lived below that dam didn't have the power to go tell Boyce to comply with regulations, clean up its act and do what needed to be done for safety. We trusted our federal agencies and state agencies to do that. They let us down," Rasor said.
The lawsuit is asking for a total of more than $11.7 million combined for the 10 couples.
"I think it's time for everybody involved in this litigation to sit down, work out a deal and make sure not only the victims get compensated, but that it doesn't happen again," Rasor said.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
This case adds to a number of lawsuits stemming from the dam disaster, which have been filed against the federal government, the state of Michigan, Boyce Hydro and insurance companies.
