How you survived the Glen Arbor storm: stories from the people

From staff reports

Mother and child camping

A mother of an infant was sitting in her tent at DH Day Campground, holding her baby, when the storm arrived Sunday afternoon. She suddenly realized that the tent wasn’t a safe place to be. So she and the baby moved into their vehicle. Within minutes a tree fell onto their tent. Had they still been there, it might have killed them. This story was told to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore chief interpreter Merrith Baughmann when National Park officials evacuated, and closed, the campground on Monday. — Jacob Wheeler

The mega storm dropped hundreds of old-growth trees, closed all roads to Glen Arbor, knocked out electricity, and brought the tourism economy to a standstill. Thankfully, it didn’t kill anyone. The only serious injury we know about was a 47-year-old Colorado man who was driving on Dunn’s Farm Rd (to pick up his son who had reportedly gone for a jog) when his car was hit by a tree limb. The man, who was bleeding, was cut out of the car by fast-thinking neighbors, transported by pontoon boat across Big Glen Lake to the Narrows Bridge, and then taken by ambulance to Munson Hospital in Traverse City. He reportedly sustained several fractured vertebrae but is expected to recover.

Anna Young

Anna Young, 22, of Gaithersburg, Maryland is living in Glen Arbor this summer and working at The Cove in Leland. Monday morning she was waiting for an auto glass replacement company from Traverse City to come out to replace her Chevy Malibu’s front window. A branch dropped on it. “It took a pretty big branch to do that,” she said. Anna is leaving to return to Maryland next week and was “worried about getting it fixed in time.” I shot a picture of Anna and her car. — Sarah Bearup-Neal

Danni and Jon Shultz

Danni and Jon Shultz of Grand Rapids were supposed to go back to GR on Monday after a long weekend in Glen Arbor. They are going home, but not in their own car, a late model SUV that is, for the time being, crushed under the weight of a cedar tree that not only fell on it Sunday, but shoved a limb through the windshield and crushed the dash. The car was parked on State Street in Glen Arbor. The Shultzes had been wandering around the village on Sunday afternoon when the storm hit. They sheltered at Art’s Bar until they could get back to their car. Monday morning they returned to retrieve some belongings before leaving town with another couple. “Luckily, we have friends staying up here so we’ll go back with them,” Danni said. The car is being left on State Street for the Shultzes’ insurance adjuster to evaluate. “Shit happens,” Jon Shultz said. “You can quote me on that.” — Sarah Bearup-Neal

Kevin and Peg McCarty

Kevin and Peg McCarty were returning from Traverse City Sunday afternoon. They turned onto Northwoods Drive to drop off Peg’s 90-year-old mother at a family cottage on Big Glen. The McCartys continued on Northwoods “when all of a sudden, the skies opened up and it all dumped on us,” Peg said. They moved ahead at a snail’s pace and got to their home and waited out the storm, parked in their garage. After the storm had stopped, Kevin and Peg went back out and walked to Glen Craft Marina to meet up with Paul Pohlman, Peg’s brother-in-law, who couldn’t get any further along Sunset Drive because of downed trees. They decided to walk along the Big Glen shoreline to Paul’s home — where they’d dropped of Peg’s mom — and that took about 90 minutes. Docks were torn up, but “people were out starting to pick up their yards,” Peg said. The elected to walk home from Pohlman’s by land (“We thought, ‘How bad could Northwoods be?’ ” Peg said), but encountered an impenetrable mesh of mature trees laid out across Northwoods. Peg realized, to her horror, that these trees must have been falling behind them when they’d been trying to drive through the storm earlier in the afternoon. — Sarah Bearup-Neal

We started the day on Pyramid point. My friends and I came up for a long weekend to party for my birthday at our newly acquired cottage in Maple City. The day before we hit as many breweries as possible and Sunday was reserved to experience the natural wonders of Leelanau Peninsula. We saw the first storm come in while we watched from the top of Pyramid Point. We waited till the rain started before heading back. We watched the storm from Good Harbor Bay on the way back to Little Traverse Lake. The first storm cleared so we headed onto the lake. That’s when we noticed the big storm coming in. We rushed back to the dock and got the cover on just in time. We watched in amazement as the storm blew in across the lake I’ve only seen weather like this on storm chasers and I felt like a storm chaser in that moment. It was beautiful powerful and dangerous all in a single natural wonder. I believe from what I saw after the storm Glen Arbor and surrounding cities will bounce back and I hope to be up there very soon. — Joseph Peter

Carol Worsley

Carol Worsley was in her office above the detached garage at her Thyme Inn bed and breakfast when the air changed. “I noticed that the wind stopped, and it got almost pitch black, so I decided to finish my paperwork in the kitchen.” As she was gathering up her items “I thought I heard someone yell ‘GO!’ like my mother when she was mad. I dashed to the stairs, got part-way down, and then the tree crashed and the wind blew and I was thrown down the stairs.”

She struck her head but did not break anything, and she got out of the garage only to see that it was cut in half by a century-old oak tree that landed right where her desk is. Battered and bruised, Carol is grateful that she was not—what she joked — “Glen Arbor’s only fatality. I feel very lucky!” She still has a headache and is heading in for an MRI to make sure there is no hidden damage. — Mike Buhler

My family and I were in the main part of the house, when someone mentioned how dark it was getting. I looked up and shouted “Everyone to the basement, NOW!” I grabbed the baby and rushed down the steps. The power went out and others followed as I led them to the bathroom for safety. Some stopped and looked out the window. We watched as a tree was breaking in front of us. We were blessed as the trees were falling along the front of the house rather than into it. — Susan Langham

When trees came down at the Old School House, home of Total Fitness Training, owner Stacy Jago knew who to call: Dad. He, other family, and friends departed from Newberry and Sault Saint Marie in the Upper Peninsula and came down to help. Once Stacy’s trees were tackled, they decided to stay, and began to help others.

Their next stop was at Corinne Cochran’s, with dozens of trees littering her yard and one on her roof. “What was cool about it is that cutting a tree is an artform, and these guys have the skill to do it, and with such ease, said Corinne. She paid them a fair sum (there are rumors of price gouging), and fed them all breakfast the next morning.

They then moved on to the crippled neighborhood of Northwood Drive, and are helping to open up driveways with trees stacked 10-20′ high. — Mike Buhler

And now to your own storm survival stories … please email them (max 200 words) to editorial@GlenArborSun.com or post them to our Glen Arbor Sun Facebook account. We’ll publish them here.