Michael Filley placed several wet children’s books in the sun to dry on his back deck just hours after the basement flooded in the home he and his wife, Katie, had purchased four months earlier on Springfield Circle in Niles.

Michael, 25, did not find out about the water damage until he went into the basement to get ready for work around 5 a.m. Tuesday.

“It wasn’t quite up to the stairs but I could see the carpet get darker and saw a couple kids books floating,” said the Dowagiac Union High School graduate.

The finished basement contained many toys for their two young children, including a wooden kitchen set, wooden ice cream cart and several wooden puzzles that are likely not salvageable.

“I just cried and thought, ‘oh my goodness, it is the kids’ stuff,’” said Katie, 24, an Edwardsburg High School graduate. “That made it all the more sad for me.”

The Filleys’ neighbor, Linda Koontz, said she had approximately six inches of water in her basement, which was full of mainly storage items. She said she came downstairs in the morning and saw the matted grass outside the window.

“When I saw that I knew I was probably in trouble,” she said.

Koontz, who has lived in the Springfield Circle home since 1976, said this is the second time the creek behind her home has flooded enough to cause damage in her basement.

Chief Larry Lamb, of the Niles Fire Department, said dozens of people experienced some type of basement flooding as a result of the rainstorm, which dumped between 5 and 10 inches of rain across Michiana, according to the National Weather Service.

Lamb said the area near the intersection of Wesaw and Topinabee was covered in water.

“There was a huge amount of water very quickly,” he said. “We haven’t seen that type of water there in 20 years.”

Lamb said public safety personnel shut off power to affected homes and assisted with homeowners where needed throughout the early morning hours.

The fire department also responded, he said, to foundation collapses at homes in the 1600 block of North 5th Street and the 600 block of North 13th Street shortly after midnight. Lamb speculated that the pressure from the water caused the foundation walls to cave in.

Jeff Dunlap, utilities manager, said 7.65 inches of water was recorded at the city’s wastewater treatment plant over a period of 24 hours. He said that is the most rainfall recorded since at least 2000.

There was so much water, he said, that the city had to discharge approximately 12 million gallons of water from the treatment plant into the St. Joseph River. The facility is designed to handle approximately 4 inches of rain in 24 hours, he said, so the facility received nearly double that last night.

“We just couldn’t hold it anymore,” he said.

Dunlap said the water was chlorinated and discharged into the river within the facility’s operating permit limits, according to their readings. He said the city notified the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality of the discharge, per regulations, and that more testing would be performed.

Dunlap said it was first time the facility had to discharge water into the river since 2007.