Water was everywhere.
It was moving up to the front porches of homes and flooding backyards. Hotels were full of utility linemen and emergency workers. And near the Cheboygan Lock & Dam Complex — the most worrisome area — crews were doing everything they could to hold the water back.
By early Tuesday afternoon, April 14, the dam was just inches away from overflowing, which would unleash a potentially perilous torrent of water, causing downstream flooding, damaging homes, businesses, roads, and even worse, lead to a structural breach.
The emergency, however, went well beyond Cheboygan.
Just before 4 p.m., emergency management officials issued an evacuation order to people in low areas of the Little Black River watershed, which, the alert said was unrelated to the dam, but serious nonetheless.
The entire Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula have been under a flood watch. Flash flood and flood warnings and advisories have been issued near several dams, including the Cheboygan, Tippy and Mio, in the northern Lower Peninsula.
Overnight rain took out roadways, and the Bellaire Dam, about 40 miles north of Traverse City and just upstream from the Up North village, was being watched for potential failure after water seepage was found at the base of the structure.
“Due to the rising water levels, pre-filled sandbags are arriving this afternoon and will immediately be placed on the dam’s berm,” Antrim County officials said in a news release. “Additional sandbags will be arriving tomorrow. They will be filled and put in place.”
In Benzie County, a TV station reported, residents were warned that a third dam, Homestead, on the Betsie River in Benzonia Township, was also at risk of being structurally compromised.
But that morning, Emerick Passeno, 15, of Indian River, and his sister, Peatl, 7, went to the Cheboygan dam to get a closer look. The teen compared the impending natural disaster to last year’s that wrought widespread destruction.
“It’s just as bad as the ice storm, but with water,” he said.
And at the moment, all eyes in Michigan are on the 1922 dam, regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with Michigan State Police and Homeland Security setting up webpages to receive the latest alerts michigan.gov/cheboygandam.
The plan: ‘Ready, set, go’
Back in Cheboygan, the concern was that if the water level topped six inches below the top of the 21-foot-high, 580-foot-long hydroelectric dam, it would trigger the next step in the “ready, set, go” warning system.
At that point — the “set” step — residents in the area should prepare family, pets and vehicles for evacuation.
In the past few days, flood alerts and other weather warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service across a wide area of northern Michigan as rivers and streams surge.
Steady rain overnight and intermittent showers made everything worse. A dense fog hung above the treetops. The warm spell that hit Detroit hadn’t reached northern Michigan, where temperatures remained in the low 40s.
The snow that remained there, still piled in parking lots, was melting, too.
That added to the flooding — and fears.
And as the sun rose Tuesday on the Cheboygan River in northern Michigan, so did the water levels, which have residents on edge and on standby to evacuate as the water level — at 7 a.m. — was a little more than a half-foot below the top of the structure.
Some of the heaviest Up North flooding has been reported along the Au Sable River near Red Oak, located in the northeast Lower Peninsula; the Manistee River, near Sherman in the northwest Lower Peninsula; and the Muskegon River at Evart, according to the NOAA Water Prediction Service map.
Sandbags, pipes and power lines
To mitigate potential damage at the Cheboygan dam, crews with a crane hoisted bags of what appeared to be sand across the river from east to west. They kept stacking the bags up on the dam’s western edge.
They also added a large black pipe, about 4 feet in diameter, reaching from one side of the dam across several hundred yards of ground and stretching to the river downstream.
Nearby, Consumers Energy trucks were working to secure electrical lines.
Some residents still went about their business, concerned, but not terrified.
John Chorey, 65, spent the morning clipping hair at Uncle John’s Barber Shop, half a block north of the State Street drawbridge. The drawbridge is up, so anything floating by in the high water won’t slam into the underside of the bridge.
Chorey said he’s worried, but not about being flooded out. State Street is high enough above the water.
“Everything else, yes. But I’m with the bridge, and they built the bridge so it would never wash out,” he said. “I’m safer here than I am a mile away at home. The only thing I would worry about is the power company is talking about turning off the power ahead of time.”
But if they do that, he said, people who aren’t flooded “would be without power.”
The ‘cautionary zone’ of flooding
Overnight rainfall also led to multiple road closures in the region due to flooding. According to updates from the CCE Central Dispatch, which provides 911 services for Charlevoix, Cheboygan and Emmet counties, there were road closures.
They included Rogers Road east of the Barber Road intersection in Emmet County, West Slater Road in Cheboygan County, East Lake Street in front of the Petoskey Department of Public Safety’s fire station, and U.S. 31 from the D&W Plaza to Division Road in Petoskey.
Water was reported on Thumb Lake Road near Hetrick Road and Resort Pike and Williams Road. Residents were told to avoid these areas and find alternate routes while the flooding persists.
By about 1 p.m., Dave Orr, 65, of Cheboygan, said he had been keeping an eye on his mother-in-law’s home, which is about 50 yards from the river. Orr wore knee-high boots as he climbed the steps out of the basement beneath the home.
“Checked it yesterday and it was dry,” he said. “This morning, there was two feet.”He said his mother-in-law stores things in the basement, but there’s no living space down there to get damaged. His own home is high and dry, but like others in town, he’s worried about the power being cut, which would stop the pump.On Monday, the Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office had posted to Facebook a map showing a “cautionary zone” of potential flooding downriver from the dam, but water levels are unpredictable and exactly where the water might go is, too.
The potential flooding areas extended to North Main Street and North Huron Street on the river’s northwest bank, and into South A Street on its southeastern bank. The Cheboygan River flows northeast through the city before ending at northern Lake Huron.
“Please avoid this area if possible,” sheriff’s officials said. “Community members within this area should be prepared with a go bag and secure valuables. The Cautionary Zone will be updated as the situation evolves.”
Officials even warned residents outside the cautionary zone to be on alert.
Dale Rocco, 73, said he lives just outside of town on the Black River, which feeds into the Cheboygan. His home is about 8 feet above the river, so he is confident he’ll be fine.
But it has been a tough winter in northern Michigan, he said, explaining that “four weeks ago, we had 30 inches of snow.” He added it cost him “$700 to get my driveway cleared.”
The flooding is adding just one more thing for Up North residents to endure.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Northern Michigan braces for widespread flooding, dam failures
Reporting by John Wisely, Keith Matheny, Jalen Williams, Jillian Fellows, Sarah Moore and Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
