‘Catastrophic’ damage: Thousands of miles of powerlines smothered in ice after Northern Michigan storm

The damage to parts of Northern Michigan following the weekend’s historic ice storm is nothing short of catastrophic, according to a state official.

The massive amount of damage and the long-lasting effects of this storm rise to the level of a catastrophe, said Kim Vetter, spokesperson for the Michigan State Police. Multiple Up North communities are impacted by thick layers of ice, and thousands of Michiganders have been without power since Friday and Saturday.

Some have compared the level of destruction to trees and power lines this week to Michigan’s famous 1976 ice storm - others have said it’s worse. Immediately after the weekend ice storm, more than 100,000 homes and business were without power.

“The ice on the (power) lines is very thick and cold temperatures are not allowing for thawing,” she told MLive. “The power utilities cannot reconnect customers until the ice is off the lines. The lines are also fragile and keep breaking. Thousands of miles of power lines are covered in ice. This is a huge incident, impacting thousands.”

Northern Michigan ice storm — A massive ice storm caused destruction across Northern Michigan. In this photo, ice-covered trees are down across a road near Gaylord.Photo provided by Dane Farver

With the power out, many households are running generators, but the gasoline needed to keep them going can be difficult to procure. Crawford County Emergency Management advised on Monday that there was no fuel in their county. And the state police on Monday afternoon warned that fuel was getting hard to find in the St. Ignace area. In other places, lines of cars waited to get into gas stations that were open.

Several counties have been under shelter-in-place orders for days with some lifting that order today, including Otsego County, home of the hard-hit Gaylord.

Warming shelters have been established throughout the impacted areas, but some roads are impassable with downed trees and power lines, limiting access to services.

With ice persisting, the full extent of the damage has not been realized, Vetter said.

“Ice. Ice everywhere and covering everything,” she said. “Power poles are bending and straining under the weight (of ice) and trees are encased in inches of ice. The trees are breaking and falling, causing further damage to property and power lines.”

Great Lakes Energy, which serves much of the northern Lower Peninsula, said Tuesday on Facebook that the storm caused widespread damage to “the route electricity takes to reach your home.” Transmission lines (serving 10,000 to 20,000 customers) and substations (serving 1,000 to 5,000) are down.

“When electricity goes out, most of us expect power will be restored within a few hours,” GLE said. “But when a major storm causes widespread damage, like the one we’re experiencing now, longer outages result.”

Even as the transmission lines and substations are restored, “we are still dealing with a massive ice problem that keeps breaking trees, lines, and poles,” GLE said.

More than 40,000 GLE customers are without power today. Consumers Energy reports more than 90,000 without power; however, some of that is in southern Michigan where there was a devastating wind storm over the weekend.

On Monday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency related to the ice storm for 10 counties: Otsego, Oscoda, Montmorency, Presque Isle, Emmet, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Mackinac and Alpena.

Meanwhile, another wintry mix storm is expected to hit lower Michigan tonight and into Wednesday morning.

Citizens needing non-emergency assistance should call 211.