Flood Damage Restoration in Michigan

What's Driving Flood Damage Restoration Demand in Michigan

Michigan's worst recent flood damage didn't come from a single storm so much as a multi year rise in the Great Lakes themselves: Lake Michigan and Lake Huron saw eight consecutive months of record high water levels in 2020, peaking that July at the highest level recorded since accurate measurements began in 1918, three inches above the previous July record set in 1986. That sustained high water drove shoreline erosion, damaged bluffs and dunes, and pushed flooding into homes, wells, and septic systems along the shoreline that had never taken on water before, a slow building flood risk tied to lake levels rather than a single named storm passing through. Properties along the Michigan shoreline dealing with that kind of water intrusion are often working with damage that built up over months, not hours.

Licensing in Michigan: Shoreline damage tied to Great Lakes high water levels falls under Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy rather than the licensing boards that cover general contracting, since EGLE holds separate permitting authority over shoreline armoring, seawalls, and rebuilding structures near the water's edge. That's a distinct regulatory track from LARA's Residential Builder and Maintenance and Alteration Contractor licenses, which still apply once the actual structural repair work inside the home crosses the $600 combined labor and materials threshold, so a lakeshore flood job can genuinely involve two separate state agencies rather than one.