DETROIT, MI -- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday in an interview with a Detroit radio station that he feels his constituents' pain as they try to recover from historic rainfall and flooding that wreaked havoc in the metro area.

"I've been there myself," said Snyder, an Ann Arbor area resident.

Snyder shared with WJR 760 AM radio host Frank Beckmann that his family residence had to deal with a leaky basement several times in the past due to weather.

And Snyder, nearing the end of his first term, added that his family's vacation home recently suffered roof damage due to high winds from a recent storm that knocked down trees.

"I've been through a lot of things like that, Frank," Snyder said. "We just recently had holes in our roof from storm damage to our lake house.

"We have a vacation place and we had a limb come down on the roof and had water running through the whole place; those experiences are not (inaudible) once."

Snyder's experience with flooding and other weather-related problems probably won't cheer up many Metro Detroiters trying to recover from Monday's mess that literally spilled over and seeped into Tuesday.

But Snyder's on-air explanation about what the State of Michigan intends to do now help those in need might at least reduce some anxiety in the region.

Snyder told Beckmann he and his team are "working as quickly as possible with good people that are the experts" to assess damage done by flooding to the region's freeways, streets, neighborhoods, businesses and other areas.

And Snyder didn't appear to rule out seeking federal assistance if the State of Michigan and its communities in the most need reach the "threshold the federal government requires" before that entity steps in.

"The work is actually actively going on," said Snyder, when asked by Beckmann if federal assistance is an option.

Snyder wasn't asked by Beckmann, known for his conservative views, if Michigan should increase spending to improve the state's roads and transportation-related infrastructure like bridges and freeway pumping stations.

Snyder said he isn't aware of any permanent structural problems involved with Metro Detroit's state-operated infrastructure, but remains concerned about road beds, potential sinkholes and hazardous water runoff into local waterways.

The reason some major thoroughfares stayed closed, as of Wednesday morning, was because engineers were still in the process of assessing the conditions of embankments, road beds, bridges, drainage systems and other amenities.

"We don’t want to take any chances, and want to make sure they are properly inspected and that they will be safe," Snyder said.

Snyder didn't want to speculate on reports that some freeway pumping stations operated by the Michigan Department of Transportation failed during Monday's excessive rainfall due to poor maintenance, but said he is looking into the matter.

"I don’t want to speculate on that because we want to get the facts," Snyder said. "People come up with lots of theories, but you have to put it in context. This was a record amount of water in a pretty short period of time, so again, even normal pumps have pumping capacity issues.

"So this was a storm that hadn’t happened in over 100 years in terms of the amount of rain and potentially losing some of the power to these facilities."