Loved ones angry over flooded Rochester Hills cemetery

ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (FOX 2) - Some of the grave sites here have dried up but others are still submerged in muddy water - and it will only get worse the next time it rains.

For one woman who has loved ones buried there, that's something she cannot accept.

"So when I walked there Saturday it felt like I had broke my promise to my father," said Annette Ahnen.  "And I can't. I can't break my promise."

Ahnen says the standing water at Christian Memorial Cemetery in Rochester Hills can make for broken vows. She promised her father, Raymond Major, she would take care of his grave. 

Her visit on Memorial Day weekend left her floored:

"There was just water everywhere," she said. "It looked like a war zone."

Her parents' and grandparents' headstones were submerged. 

"Is there going to be a sinkhole there, you never know," she said. "There is so much water there. Are my parents floating in water, are there caskets full of water, I don't know?”

Flooding at the cemetery has been a problem for years, but her visit Saturday was the last straw.

Ahnen says she confronted cemetery workers who told her they would get rid of the water Monday. She returned to another broken promise.

"All they did was throw sod on top of the water," she said. "It made more mud."

FOX 2 reached out to the cemetery for comment but they have yet to respond.

"We don't get involved in private property drainage issues, which we feel very confident this is," said Mayor Bryan Barnett, Rochester Hills.

Barnett says the city spent roughly $100,000 to address any issue on its end that could've led to the flooding at the cemetery.

"I understand that this is an extremely unfortunate situation, this is one where we understand there is an emotional component as well," said Barnett.

A broken promise and flooded graves. The ball now, seemingly, in the cemetery’s court. 

"It's just disrespecting everybody buried in that area," said Ahnen. "And people can't even walk and visit their loved ones."