Talking Michigan Transportation
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Talking Michigan Transportation
MDOT crews, other agencies respond to historic ice storm
A few days after a massive ice storm rocked northern lower Michigan, many thousands remain without power while crews from power companies, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and other state and local agencies continue the cleanup and rebuilding process.
Bill Wahl, MDOT North Region associate engineer for operations, who is coordinating department efforts, joins the podcast to provide an update on the recovery.
Also joining is James Lake, MDOT North Region media relations specialist, who assists the Mackinac Bridge Authority (MBA) with communications. He talks about why falling ice necessitated closing the bridge three times in three days, including a record 30-hour period.
Wahl and Lake grew up in the region and neither has seen anything like this ice storm and the resulting destruction. Wahl recounts utility workers who had been on power-restoration projects following hurricanes in the Southeast saying the scenes are as bad or worse as anything they’ve seen.
Wahl says crews from several counties to the south, including Kent, Ottawa, Mason, Missaukee, Muskegon, Roscommon, Iosco and Wexford, were helping to clear roads.
While the Mackinac Bridge re-opened Thursday morning, April 3, after a 30-hour closure, officials will continue to closely monitor conditions for falling ice.
The MBA posted a video message on X from Bridge Director Kim Nowack about the falling ice, along with some photos from the bridge. More videos of falling ice that prompted the current closure were also posted on X.
The bridge has closed roughly 30 times in the past 30 years, and the average closure duration is several hours. More frequently asked questions about falling ice and other topics are available on the MBA website.
Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranston. As you probably know if you live in Michigan or the region, the northern part of our state was rocked by some serious, almost unprecedented ice storms at least unprecedented in recent years and the people still continue to recover from that. Still a lot of power outages. Most of the primary roads and trunk lines have been reopened, at least are passable to some degree. Lots of work remaining to do. Not to mention this has exacerbated a problem in recent years, with ice melting quickly and falling from the Mackinac Bridge, making it too dangerous for vehicles to cross. So I spoke with Bill Wall, who's the Associate Region Operations Engineer for MDOT's North Region, which is much of northern lower Michigan, and James Lake, who is MDOT's Media Relations Communications Representative in that region and he also does communications work for the Mackinac Bridge Authority about what's going on. They both live in that area and they have interesting perspective, personally and professionally, about the recovery and everything that's going on, all the various agencies and the collaboration. So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 2:So, as mentioned in the introduction, I'm speaking today with Bill Wall, who is the Associate Region Engineer in the North Region for Operations, and James Lake, who is the Media Relations and Communications Specialist for the North Region. I wanted to talk to both of them to get their personal and professional perspective on these ice storms Really unprecedented in recent memory the amount of damage, the amount of destruction and inconvenience for people in terms of power outages and transportation and getting fuel and so many things. Both of them are natives of the region. Getting fuel and so many things. Both of them are natives of the region. I know James grew up in greater Lewiston and Bill is from Ross Common County area originally, but both have worked in that region in the Gaylord office for a number of years. So thank you both for being here. Our pleasure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, glad to be here.
Speaker 2:And Bill, I want to start with you, because you've been kind of the point person for the department on this recovery Talk a little bit about what it was like for you returning from spring break, like so many people, and trying to make your way to your own house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been quite the journey. I have made my way to my house a couple of times so far, but we're on our way back from spring breakdown in South Carolina and we're watching the weather. And, as you mentioned earlier, I'm originally from the Roscommon County area and we still have family living there. So we made the decision on our drive up, when we saw power go out on Saturday, to just stop at my in-laws house, thinking, oh, we'll just be there till tomorrow and then we'll make the rest of our way home. Well, that was Saturday night. It's now what Thursday and we're still there and don't really have an estimated time that power will come back on in the neighborhood we live to be able to get back home.
Speaker 3:I have been able to get up to my house a couple of times to run a generator, try to keep the house warm, keep freezers cold, and the destruction is just unbelievable. I lived in a lot that was heavily wooded with mature maples and almost every tree the top of it is snapped off from the way to the ice. Many have made their way to the ground already, some are still hanging up in the tops of the trees, and that's pretty much what you see everywhere you go, the impacts are just astounding. As you drive up and down i-75 and just see all these trees that have been pulled down by the ice, um, and then looking out across different landscapes and whole forests that are just, at times, almost looks like someone took hedge clippers and just trimmed the tops of all the trees off because they're just not there anymore.
Speaker 2:I think james made the point the other day, that other day that it's kind of eerie because in a way, especially when you see the ice on the conifers, it's kind of beautiful in its own way and yet you know the destruction that's been done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. We were driving up two days ago. It was the first time we'd had sun and I was driving on I-75 starting from about Grayling, the rest of the way north to Gaylord. It felt like you were driving through a world made out of crystal, Because the sun was just shining through this clear glass ice on every tree and it was all just shimmering and sparkling and it was absolutely beautiful if you didn't think about how much destruction it was causing at the same time. And looking at the properties even our office in Gaylord James and I both took pictures there because every bush is just coated. It looks like a scene out of the movie Frozen. At times, Everything just has this layer of ice encapsulating it and it was just eerie and beautiful to look at.
Speaker 2:But then you see half the tree toppled over because it couldn't handle the weight and we don't even know yet what the overall damage is going to be to some of those beautiful both the pines and the hardwoods when this is all said and done, james, talk about your experience in trying to get to your house, which I know you couldn't get to by vehicle a couple days ago. I don't know where things stand now.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, kind of a similar story to Bill's. We were in southern Ohio for spring break visiting family. We made our way north on Sunday to drop off my oldest son at Central Michigan University and then decided, based on the reports we were hearing, to stay one more night. So we stayed in Mount Pleasant, started north Monday morning and encountered the same thing. We started driving into our neighborhood. Couldn't get all the way to our house by car, so I got out and walked in. Thankfully, no big trees down on our house, none on my car. No big trees down on our house, none on my car, just a yard littered with upper branches. As Bill was saying, lots of the tops snapped out, not sure how many of these trees that are still standing, whether they'll even survive. We've been without power now since Saturday as well. We've been running a portable generator to keep the heat on. Power came on briefly yesterday, wednesday, but it's out again, so we're still just kind of waiting for that recovery to begin.
Speaker 2:So you've spent most of your life there. You went to college in Marquette, obviously, and then spent some years working for the department in the Upper Peninsula, but most of your life has been spent in that North Region area. Have you ever seen anything like?
Speaker 1:this Nothing and you know really, the proof is, before this event you could drive around and see no evidence of anything like this. We've had tornadoes, In fact, just in recent years, in Gaylord we had a tornado touchdown and caused a swath of destruction that we're still just kind of working through recovery on, and in past years we've had straight line winds that have knocked down swaths of trees, but nothing this widespread. It is everywhere, and I haven't gone outside of Otsego County personally since this began. But if the other counties that were included in this emergency declaration are the same, this is unlike anything anyone living has ever seen.
Speaker 2:So, Bill, I'm sorry, did you want?
Speaker 3:to weigh in on that point. Well, I was going to say I've seen multiple comments from with to james comment with line workers and others that are out trying to rebuild the power grid. This isn't just like putting a few lines up a lot of spots, it's truly rebuilding the power grid from scratch. Who've commented that the destruction is worse than any hurricane?
Speaker 2:they've responded to these are people probably that have been called in from utilities in the south that would have seen hurricane damage.
Speaker 3:And people who have responded from our area down. These are the crews that go respond to hurricanes every year and are commenting that this is as bad or worse of any storm they've ever responded to. I saw Consumers Energy is listed as a top 10 storm in their history that they've ever dealt with. Yeah, and like James said, I've been native to northern Michigan pretty much my entire life and I've never seen anything that even comes close to this. You get the occasional ice storm, bend a pine tree over and then it would stand itself back up the next spring, but nothing to the level of destruction that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 2:So when you put that in context, when you talk to these people, I think one of the things that's really hard to do is get a handle on the massive power outages, for obvious reasons. I mean, if it's DTE or consumers, you can easily go on either one of their sites and find out where the power outages are. But a lot of the power up there is provided by rural co-ops, so it's really probably hard to know just the extent of it, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and all the co-ops and consumers are doing a great job of showing and tracking who's out. Most spots aren't giving any sort of restoration estimate right now because they just don't know. We're hearing for some of the areas that are in more rural areas, like at Sego County, it could be two to three weeks potentially, if not more, before they can have power back. I'm hearing anecdotal reports from people who I work with that I've talked to, of sections of roads where 80 to 90 percent of the power poles are snapped off, substations that have just been destroyed. I happened to be at our office in Gaylord a couple days ago while I was up in town, just checking on it and looked out on M32, and there's a big transmission I don't know if it's technical transmission or heavy-duty distribution line that runs parallel to M32, and all the poles were down. They're out setting new poles for a whole section of it. There's no trees in this area, it's all nice and clear so that branches don't fall, but the weight of the ice just pulled all the poles down.
Speaker 2:And those sagging wires make it hard for trucks to get through too right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, part of the challenge we had early on in the storm was we had sections of road where we had the trees off the road. The wires weren't down, but the wires were dangling so low that semis couldn't get under them. So then trucks were starting to come into a section. Then they'd be stuck and the impacts from that standpoint for the transportation side has just been astonishing to see how many lines are down and our trunk lines have fared way better than the county roads because we tend to have a wider right-of-way. Tree lines are pushed further back, so we've been able to get those open. But there's some areas still where they're still trying to cut paths just to access the road, not to have any sort of functioning road but just to have some level of access to get to where people's homes are, because there's so many trees down across the different roads.
Speaker 2:So talk about the level of coordination with various agencies the utilities, the county road commissions, obviously other state agencies, including the DNR. I think I was impressed to see how many downstate counties had sent trucks and equipment up there. I think the one that really struck me was someplace as far south as Kent County had trucks on the roads in Emmett County. How does that all come to be?
Speaker 3:the incredible relationships that at my level, at the statewide level, and especially, though, at the level of our maintenance coordinators that work within our various offices, have with their counterparts around the state, with the various road commissions. As soon as the storm hit and the level of destruction was recognized, we started getting calls from those counties that weren't impacted saying how can we help. Initially it it started as the ones in the north region it was kind of the northeast corner of the region that was hit there's 10 counties and all the counties that were surrounding that basically started calling and saying what can we do to help? So we basically, at that point, started having them. They started sending crews in. Some were going to work directly with the local road commissions on their roads, but in most spots what we've been doing is we have a crew comes in from, say, wexford County, which was one of the first to send a staff. They came into Otsego County and Crawford County to relieve the road commission in those counties from having to worry about the state roads. Those both happen to be counties, crawford and Otsego, where the road commissions typically do the maintenance on the state highways for us. So we were able to have other crews come in, other counties come in and they relieve the road commission so they could go work on their own roads. And that's really been due to the relationships that are built between the staff level staff at MDOT as well as all these road commissions to say how can we work together. Staff at MDOT as well as all these road commissions to say how can we work together.
Speaker 3:As of today, I hesitated to list off the counties because I'm sure I'm going to forget somebody. I don't want to slight anyone, but I know, as of this morning, we have crews from Ottawa County, which is the Holland area, heading up to Alpena to help out up there. We've got crews from Kent County, muskegon County, mason County, all over that have sent their crews in with equipment, with food most of the time, because it's still challenging to buy food and to come work with our staff out in the field and allow the resources that are coming in from the National Guard, from the DNR, to really be focused on these local roads that still just need to be opened up, while we can bring these crews in from the other counties with big chippers and other stuff and they're helping to start really clean the trunk lines up to get them back to what we would normally consider an acceptable level following a storm, back to what we would normally consider an acceptable level following a storm. I can't speak highly enough of the work that MDA and county staff at really at that staff level, the local management level has done to figure out how can we work together?
Speaker 3:Where do we need these resources? How can we make sure we're getting people so they can safely get where they need to go, especially as we're starting to see power is kicking on slowly in the major urban areas. Your Gaylords and Alpinas and Petoskey the actual cities themselves are starting to see power come back. So now people have spots they can go to get gas for their generators, they can go get food, find potentially a spot that's warm to stay, and making sure those roads can get them there has really been our focus.
Speaker 2:So, james, from a media standpoint, I was telling you that I was with some friends Tuesday night and I was stunned that not a one of them had any idea of what was going on. You know, up north as we say, obviously the coverage is probably pretty thorough there, but I just don't know if most people downstate have any idea of the severity of this.
Speaker 1:I get that impression as well, and maybe part of that is the thinking that up north we're used to things like this, that we get blizzards and we get ice storms and similar situations, but nothing like this. I mean, when you have every tree limb, every power line encased in, you know, an inch and a half of ice, that's like nothing we deal with on a regular basis. And so I think maybe there's an expectation that we're hardy souls up here and we are, think maybe there's an expectation that we're hardy souls up here and we are, but this exceeds our capacities to respond in many cases. As Bill was saying, the power isn't on yet in a lot of these locations, People are still holding.
Speaker 1:Well, you got it back and then lost it again right, Exactly, and there's lots of people further off the grid than me that don't have power. Probably no prospect of getting power back for at least several days. It's been cold too. Temperatures dropped down into the teens a couple nights ago. So if you don't have power, if you don't have backup heat like a wood stove or something like that, it got pretty darn frigid, that it got pretty darn frigid. People are losing food and weren't able to get out and get new, fresh food because a lot of our grocery stores were closed. So logistical issues and these crews that are coming up, it's wonderful, but we're also still struggling with getting fuel in these gas stations, getting food resupplies in the stores, and a lot of the businesses hotels that would house workers are not open due to power outages as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just going to ask about that. Where are the people staying who are going up there? Because you don't drive from Ottawa County to Alpena County and then turn around and come right back. So what are you doing?
Speaker 3:That's been one of the biggest challenges to this whole thing. So a lot of the line workers are actually being billeted at Camp Grayling right now, so there's a lot that are staying there. Boring Mountain has offered up their condos, so a lot of the crews that we have working, as well as a lot of electrical crews on kind of more of the westerly side, have been able to stay Because Boyne doesn't have a good way to rent out their condos right now for different things. So they've offered up line worker rates there. So we've got a lot of crews I know that have found accommodations through there.
Speaker 3:We're working through various hotels as power comes on in different areas and hotels become available. Power crews, as well as any of the crews we have coming in, are working to snag those rooms up. But you also have a lot of people in those communities that don't have power that are also looking for lodging because they need. They're trying to get to a spot where they have warmth and water and showers and electricity. So it's definitely a challenge for all the different areas as National Guard comes in and anyone else of. Where do people stay to make sure that they're safe when they're done working for whatever, how many hours they're going to put in for the day. They need to have food and warmth when they're done. So that's definitely a huge challenge that is going to be facing us for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2:And I see that while today we're recording, on Thursday, april 3rd and it could get up to 50 in some parts of the region that it's going to plunge back down to lows in the low 20s by Monday and Tuesday. That's got to be disconcerting for people who might still be without power.
Speaker 3:That's definitely one of the big challenges.
Speaker 3:I mean over time I mean it's been warm enough that I'd say like for personally, for my house, have not been up to this point particularly concerned about pipes freezing, because it's been warm enough in general during the day to keep things up.
Speaker 3:But if we get into protracted cold snaps now you've got issues with people's homes, with pipes freezing and heating systems, as well as food being lost out of refrigerators and freezers, and the longer it goes on, the more the challenges change. When you get into a really protracted power outage, that really is unprecedented for northern Michigan and I can remember growing up, some storms we've had go through at different times and you might have the power out for three days, four days at the most. Even when we hit the tornado, hit Gaylord back a few years ago, within three or four days vast majority of customers had power. I looked this morning and I'm not sure where consumers' numbers are at, but Great Lakes Energy is the power company that covers the rural portions of Otsego County and they still had over 80% of their customers in Otsego County were out of power and at similar numbers. When you look at Emmett and Charlevoix and Sheboygan the percentages of people, especially when you're out. Anything into the rural areas that are without power is just astonishing We've had.
Speaker 2:You know it's hard to find historical records for this because you know we know things now. We have technology now that we didn't maybe when the bridge was built 70 years ago. But we've seen these ice melts in the spring, sometimes even before spring in some of those really warm winters, and the bridge has to be closed for hours at a time. And you know it's one bridge but it's not like you can say, seek alternate route.
Speaker 1:So talk about the challenges dealing with that, sure Like you said, it is the only route between the upper and lower peninsula and, as we're becoming aware, a lot of the fuel is being shipped across the bridge and so there were fuel shortages in the eastern UP because fuel trucks couldn't get across. It does seem like these falling ice closures are increasing in frequency. In the last 12 years that I've been in this area covering the Mackinac Bridge, it seems like we've had more than in the prior 20 years and they seem to be increasing in duration. For instance, just this morning we reopened the bridge after a 30-hour closure, which beat the previous record by 10 hours. So we were averaging about one falling ice closure per year.
Speaker 1:Some years we'd have multiple, some years we'd have none, but this season, this spring, we've just had three in a row back to back. That totaled 40 hours. And, for anyone who is expecting the usual reliability of the Mackinac Bridge in their travels, a lot of people found themselves stuck and facing really long closures. And, as we were just talking about the logistical difficulties for any line workers, any maintenance workers in the area, finding food, fuel, a place to stay, the people that are stuck on either side of the bridge had those same challenges, only more people looking for those rooms and places to eat and fuel for their vehicles. So it's been particularly challenging this time.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else you want to add, bill? I mean, I know that there's still a lot of unknowns, like when people are going to get power back, what another cold snap is going to mean to the recovery, but it seems like right now, from a transportation standpoint, things are much better than they were a couple of days ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know I think we're.
Speaker 3:I mean, especially the state roads and the county primaries are in much better shape than they've been. Much better shape than they've been. I just want to say thank you to all of our crews the MDOT crews, the county crews, the line workers, everyone who's out there, the emergency responders that are trying to get in and help people who may not have food or water or need assistance. It's just been incredible to watch all of the work that's going on in this and all the people working to try to keep people safe, and just a huge heartfelt thank you to everyone who's been on in this and all the people working to try to keep people safe, and just a huge heartfelt thank you to everyone who's been involved in this recovery and knowing that it's going to go on for a long time to get back to normal, but knowing that we've got the right people in place to make sure that things are moving forward and we'll continue to do everything we can to make sure people can get where they need to go when they need to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well said, I think when all's said and done, we probably will hopefully have time to do a real, you know, look back and assessment of everything that went on, and a lot of people are going to deserve a lot of thanks. Anything you want to add, james?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would just extend those thanks to all the community members. I'm seeing so much evidence of friends and neighbors reaching out to help others who are, you know, lacking power, lacking water, lacking supplies. There's really a community network and it's standing right up, ready to take care of their fellow residents.
Speaker 2:You know? One other thing that occurred to me if you guys both had spring break which it's different in different parts of the state, but are most of the schools in that area out for spring break yet this week?
Speaker 1:Most of them had spring break last week, at least in this area, but a lot of the schools in the area have canceled school for the remainder of this week just because of these storms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you both, good luck. Obviously, we'll stay in close touch on this and hope that things continue to progress as they have.
Speaker 3:Thank you for this opportunity, jeff Thanks.
Speaker 1:Jeff.
Speaker 2:I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Devler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.