Flood concerns across West Michigan

WEST MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Three West Michigan counties, Kent, Ottawa, and Barry, are under a flood warning Tuesday night.

Allegan County is also dealing with high waters, as overflow from the Rabbit River is running into a mobile home park there.

All the water has been building up from the three days of rain the area just saw, and with more rain expected over the week, some homeowners are wondering how much more water they can take.

The rain we've had so far over the week has simply overwhelmed rivers and drainage pipes, in some areas the drainage systems are working fine, but other areas have not been so lucky.

The people of Allegan County are suffering from the brunt of the flooding. Barry Reaume and about 50 other homeowners in Rabbit River Estates are all but stranded by the Rabbit River. The situation is similar all over the county.

Near Hopkins, the Rabbit River is threatening many homes.

The National Weather Service says the problem is simple.

"We were very wet in the fall and then we had a fairly wet winter," said Mark Walton, a hydrologist with the NWS, "and we've jumped right into it in spring, so we're just well above normal precipitation going into this."

The two inches of rain seen in Southwest Michigan recently has simply pushed things over the top.

"Basically, the water has just got no where to go, there's so much water out there that we're pretty much saturated," said Walton, "and it's just kind of standing around, waiting to work its way through the river system."

The National Weather Service says Southwest Michigan could see another inch of rain by the end of the week.

Even with the rain that we're expected to get the rest of the week, the National Weather Service says many of the smaller rivers, like the Rabbit River, have already crested, but the lower sections of the Grand River are not expected to crest until sometime over the weekend.