Communities in Alger County are continuing to clean up after damage from the unusually wet snow storm from Sunday, April 30-Tuesday, May 2.
The storm itself saw over 10 inches of precipitation in parts of Alger County ranging from days-long power outages, landslides and flooding. While many schools and businesses were closed, it also impacted government meetings, court hearings and the elections.
A week later, a number of municipal governments have a better understanding of how the storm impacted their local areas.
Munising
The heavy rains saturated the hill system that encapsulates most of residential Munising, with a landslide occurring at the south end of Hickory Street in Munising. The event brought down a dozen trees and hundreds of cubic feet of sand, dirt, sod and rocks.
According to Munising City Manager Devin Olson, the city was quick to respond to the landslide in the early morning hours of Thursday, May 4 and was able to safely clear the debris.
“We had removed all of the debris that came down last week. We noticed that there appears to be some signs of additional movement above it, so we kept the intersection closed for the time being just to be cautious,” Olson said in an email response.
While the hill itself was
The landslide debris in Munising was cleared by city staff, but the area is still closed off in case of further slides.
damaged, there were no injuries or major property damage to any of the residential properties below. The area is still blocked off to through traffic, but Olson said that local residents have been understanding and great to work with given the circumstances.
Au Train
Flooding was another problem for Au Train Township after the most recent storm. Already victimized by flooding due to an ice dam at the river’s delta over Christmas, multiple areas in the township were seeing high water levels due to snow melt and precipitation.
However, according to a statement by Au Train Supervisor Michelle Doucette, the floodwaters are starting to recede, dropping below six feet in the Forest Lake Basin late Wednesday evening.
During the regularly-scheduled monthly meeting for Au Train Township, officials also said that areas that were hurt the most during the Christmas flooding has not been impacted as badly as other parts of the area.
“If you or you have friends who have cabins seasonally, please check your cabin,” Doucette said at the meeting.
The Red Cross will be delivering clean-up buckets to the Au Train Township Hall to help with restoration efforts and water testing supplies are available through LMAS Health District for those with wells and localized water systems.
Chatham
The Village of Chatham, which operates the largest sewer and water system in western Alger County, said that runoff from the storm has hit the system in unprecedented numbers.
According to village staff at the regularly-scheduled village meeting on Wednesday, May 10, the village has already produced over one million gallons of sewage, with 396,000 of that coming from April 1 onwards.
“This was not normal,” said Chatham Water and Sewer Director Tim Lintula. “Never had anything like that with this heavy stuff since I’ve been here. It’s all water.”
Other village officials said that the snow was so saturated with water that it appeared blue while on the ground and that precipitation meters at the Michigan State University farms had unusually high water concentrations.
Staff will continue to monitor numbers, but conditions are expected to improve as long as no other storms come.
