The floodwaters appeared to be slowly receding around the Black Lake area in Cheboygan County in the northern reaches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula on Sunday, April 19, yet a significant number of homes and cottages near the lakefront remain wet and uninhabitable.
Wearing his winter coat and waders, Gil Archambo trudged along a submerged road toward a row of vacant, rental lakefront cottages that his family has owned for decades. The temperature was just above freezing, and a few hours earlier, there were even some snow flurries.
Water had infiltrated nearly every cottage on the block, and even ruined a vehicle belonging to his sister that was parked outside.
Archambo, who is in his 70s and works as supervisor of the area’s Grant Township, said the flooding is by far the worst that Black Lake has experienced. In fact, significant flooding has been so rare that few year-round residents and seasonal cottage owners have flood insurance.
“I’m an old timer myself now, and even the old old-timers have never seen anything like this — ever,” Archambo said.
Archambo is also among the Black Lake-area residents who have been displaced by the flooding. While the water never reached his first floor, it did submerge his yard, and since the end of last week he has been staying at a motel in nearby Indian River.
The next step, he said “is to wait for Mother Nature to take the water down.”
Working behind the counter at the area’s sole convenience store for miles, Michele Gardner said she knows of many flooded-out residents who left to stay with family and friends. And she knows others who are riding it out.
“There’s some that are just staying in place, because they have an upstairs,” said Gardner, who works at the Twin Lakes Grocery.
Another Black Lake evacuee is Becky Jones, who has been staying at her sister-in-law’s condo since she and her husband had to leave their house late last week.
Their house is fortunately still dry on the first floor, but the yard is completely submerged and they must wear waders to try and get inside.
“I was lucky to find some waders in time,” Jones said. “My husband has a full suit, but I got him the waders, too, because the full suit gets a little tougher to get on.”
Property owners at other nearby lakes are also dealing with drenched cottages.
Numerous cottages around Pigeon River Bay on Mullett Lake were still partially submerged on Sunday afternoon.
Dan Hansen, 63, who lives just off the lakefront in a home that stayed dry, had a busy weekend monitoring conditions inside several of the waterlogged cottages for their seasonal resident owners.
The flooding was by far the worst the area has ever seen, he said.
“We’ve never seen anything even close to this before,” Hansen said. “But what are you going to do. Thankfully, no loss of life.”
The American Red Cross has set up a disaster relief station for flood evacuees at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Cheboygan, 9840 N Straits Hwy. The hall appeared only sparsely populated on Sunday afternoon.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Northern Michigan floodwaters receding, but many homes uninhabitable
Reporting by JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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