Nearly six years after flooding devastated the village of Sanford, residents are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel as water comes back to Sanford Lake.
In 2020, heavy rainfall overwhelmed the Edenville Dam, which sent a surge of water downstream and decimated the Sanford Dam.
The resulting flooding caused millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses in Midland County, and dried out Sanford Lake.
Four Lakes Task Force, the organization overseeing the restoration of the Sanford, Edenville, Secord and Smallwood Dams, recently completed repairs in Sanford.
They've started to refill the lake by one foot a day. Officials estimate the refilling process will be complete by Memorial Day.
Alex Barrera is one of many people helping to clear debris that has built up near the dam as water re-entered the lake.
He said every day, people drive by to look over the project's progress.
"A lot of people are happy because they got their lake back, you know, back to the old days," Barrera said. "They've been just swinging in and talking to us while we're stopping traffic."
Caleb Buda works at Sanford Hardware. He's been embedded in the Sanford community for most of his life.
Buda said residents are excited to see water come back to the lake just in time for summer.
"People are buying docks again," he said. "A lot of people who bought property here are going to be finally seeing the fruit of that. The serotonin is just going to pick right up."
Although people tend to focus on the destruction, Buda said, the real story is the recovery.
"Since that happened, everybody rallied around and started protecting one another, becoming more of a tight-knit community," Buda said. "As sad as that is that it happened, sometimes the blessing in that is what roots from the catastrophe."
The Sanford Dam is the first of the four failed dams to be fully restored.
Each of the three remaining dams are currently under reconstruction. It will be a few more years until the work is finished and the rest of the drained lakes are revitalized.
