“I’m guessing 20... 25 people in homes right now. Some of them still don’t want to leave.” James Jonatzke, the Fire Chief with Royalton Twp. Fire Dept.
The U.S. Coast Guard and first responders continue to battle rising river levels in a Royalton Township neighborhood. A mandatory evacuation went into effect Thursday for hundreds of homeowners along the river after flooding reached as high as fences in some areas, but it wasn’t like this Wednesday afternoon.
“So we spent all yesterday afternoon going house to house and I think we had about 50% of the people leave and 50% of the people stayed. And that was in water, we were standing in water yesterday,” said Jonatzke.
Some of those homeowners who stayed back, woke up around 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning to those high level floods. The Royalton Township Fire Department responded to a call after higher levels of flooding had homeowners living near the St. Joseph River trapped inside their homes.