A couple of Campus Hill apartment tenants were startled during the weekend at the sight of their vehicles partially submerged in overflow from the Red Cedar River.
After days of rain and melting snow, the river's water levels rose and took over part of a parking lot located behind the complex.
"I didn't think the river was going to come up that far," said Derrick Lushnat, a Lansing Community College student who owned one of the submerged vehicles. "The next day I looked out, and the car was under water."
The cars cannot be removed until the ice thaws, Lushnat said.
Lushnat was contacted prior to the incident by the property's owner, DTN Management, and was warned the river could rise.
"We typically warn everybody if they are in a floodplain area," said Brian Holland, an asset manager for DTN. "That is done through the operations side of the business - they contacted both people, and they said they were not worried about it."
This is not the first instance of flooding in the area, Lushnat said, adding heavy rain during the summer caused problems.
But Holland said this is the first time a flood has affected property.
To prevent similar situations, the East Village Planning Team has discussed creating a water retention area in the East Village's master plan. Last week, the team debated the size and cost of a retention area.
"The plan would call for carving out the river bed so the waters that we would see from a storm could be contained within the flood way," said Jim van Ravensway, East Lansing's planning and community development director.
Several properties in the Cedar Village area are located in the Red Cedar's floodplain, which could lead to potential problems, he said.
"We are proposing all that water would be handled in the floodway," van Ravensway said. "Right now, they don't have that protection."
While plans are in the works, residents will be faced with the challenge of keeping their cars on dry land.
"That should not happen," Lushnat said. "Especially at a place where you pay money to live."
