TRAVERSE CITY — It can be hard to find a silver lining in a catastrophic weather event, but northern Michigan’s business sector is doing its best to help its communities pull through.
Tens of thousands of northern Michigan homes and businesses in the Northern Lower Peninsula remained without power and communications services headed into the weekend following two rounds of devastating ice accumulation last Saturday and Sunday. But local business leaders are optimistic that communities that saw their power and communication grids almost wiped out by the ice storm will be up and running again by the onset of the busy summer tourist season.
“One of the most important things to talk about is that our businesses are helping the community first — that’s the big takeaway from this,” said Nikki Devitt, president and CEO of the Petoskey Area Chamber of Commerce which was among the hardest-hit communities in the region. The entire city of Petoskey was without power for more than three days, before much of the city’s power grid was restored by Thursday afternoon.
Dozens of social media posts started popping up in the early stages of the storm of companies throughout the region offering shelter, water, food, facilities to recharge electrical devices and other assistance to help residents impacted by the weather.
“Our businesses are reaching out to help their community even before helping their own businesses,” Devitt said. “They’re putting their communities first, and that’s so important.”
While electricity and communications systems were gradually coming back online entering the weekend across the 10-county area impacted by the storm, Devitt said some pockets will continue to face challenges for days and potentially even weeks ahead. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a disaster area for a dozen Northern Michigan counties impacted by the ice storm, and deployed more than 800 members of the Michigan National Guard to assist in cleanup and restoration efforts.
“Individual community members are going to be struggling for awhile,” she said. “It’s going to be a long time and it’s going to be a major effort.”
Otsego County and the city of Gaylord also experienced widespread damage from the ice storm — less than two years after Gaylord was hit by an EF3 tornado that did widespread property damage and killed two people. Barry Owen, the long-time general manager of Treetops Resort near Gaylord, said the storm was unprecedented for the community.
“I’ve never seen anything like this — the volume of it and the damage to the electrical infrastructure was incredible,” Owen said.
Treetops lost power on Saturday but it was restored by Thursday afternoon allowing its restaurants and conference facilities to reopen. The resort was forced to cancel or reschedule a handful of events because of the power loss, but Owen said it was spared from major property damage to resort structures or equipment from downed trees.
“We’re been fortunate with that,” he said. The resort also made its parking area available to local utilities as a staging area for power poles used to replace damage electric infrastructure.
The heavily wooded resort sustained widespread tree damage that will take months to clean up, Owen said. But he said the damage shouldn’t impact the planned seasonal opening of Treetops’ golf facilities on May 1.
“There’s an incredible amount of clean-up ahead — it’s staggering,” he said. “The clean-up will go on for months, but we’ll get things presentable… we don’t anticipate any problems with (the season opening). We feel good about where we’re at right now.”
The local agricultural sector also escaped severe damage from the ice storm, as much of the heaviest icing took place north and east of Northwest Michigan’s main cherry and grape growing areas.
“From what I’ve seen so far there is very little damage to the fruit itself,” said Jack King, a fruit grower at King Orchards whose family owns two farm markets in Antrim County. King said there was some limb and tree damage to his orchards caused by ice accumulations, but that most of the impact involved downed trees that damaged some fences and some flooding in low areas that saw more rainfall than ice.
“We’ll see more (weather damage) than we wanted, of course, but I think overall the orchards held up really well,” King said. “The trees are spaced and trimmed to hold the weight of the fruit.”
King is also among the business owners who stepped up to help his neighbors, opening the farm’s freezer facilities to people who needed freezer space during the extended power outages.
Nikki Rothwell, coordinator of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center based in Leelanau County, also said the region’s prime cherry and grape-growing areas were spared from widespread storm damage. Rothwell said ice coating is generally not a problem for fruit orchards and vineyards as long as there’s not significant wind damage — strawberry growers often coat their plants with water at this time of year to protect strawberry buds.
Melanie LaPerriere, CEO of Cherry Central and vice-chair of the Cherry Marketing Institute, also said she expects the ice storm will have minimal impact on this year’s cherry crop — while acknowledging the growing season hasn’t even started yet and there’s still plenty of Mother Nature to maneuver.
“We have a saying in the business that it’s a normal crop until it’s not a normal crop,” LaPerriere said. “There’s nothing at this point to tell us that it’s nothing other than normal at this time.”
Going forward, Devitt said the Petoskey Chamber and other organizations are working on efforts to help the business community get back to some semblance of normal — while also preparing for the region’s annual onslaught of summer visitors and seasonal residents. Devitt said Chamber officials will work with organizations including the United Way, the Petoskey and Harbor Springs Regional Community Foundation and the business financing organization Venture North on programs and services to help area businesses rebound from the storm as soon as possible. State and federal officials and their emergency response arms will also be part of those discussions, she said.
“We’re going to figure this out,’ Devitt said. “We’re going to make sure our there are opportunities to help our businesses and of course help our work force as well… we are primed and ready to respond.”
Devitt said she’s also been “overwhelmed” by the efforts of the region’s emergency service, law enforcement, first responders, road agencies and the hundreds of utility workers who’ve streamed in to the region from across and beyond to help in cleanup and restoration work, along with the residents helping out family, friends, neighbors and strangers.
“We’ve had so much help,” she said. “We’re so grateful for the unbelievable efforts of our linemen and first responders.”
Devitt said the storm recovery is not unlike the challenges faced by the region as it emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago and the mandated shutdowns that brought the regional economy to a halt. Businesses that successfully came though from the pandemic can use some of those experiences to get back on their feet and get ready for the busy spring and summer seasons.
“I have no doubt that this community and its businesses will be ready,” Devitt said.