What Northern Michiganders learned from the great 2012 snowstorm

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Northern Michiganders, and residents of Leelanau and Benzie counties in particular, faced the worst snowstorm in decades the first weekend of March. Old Man Winter threw one of his last tantrums of the season Friday night, March 2, and by 8 p.m. much of the area had lost electricity. Power returned to Glen Arbor on Sunday, Empire on Monday, but some far-flung rural outposts — like my parents house, on Echo Valley Rd. — didn’t return to the 21st century until Tuesday evening.

The mighty storm dumped over two feet of heavy wet snow, knocked out electricity in nearly 100 percent of homes in Leelanau County, snapped tree limbs, lay branches onto power lines, made roads impassible and prompted Empire to open the Township Hall as an emergency shelter (here’s a TV 7&4 video report from the Suttons Bay Fire Department, which was also became a makeshift shelter). As the Leelanau Enterprise reported this week, “the storm dropped 12-16 inches across much of the traditional snowbelt of northwest Michigan except for an area found within an ominous white oval that appears to begin at Good Harbor and extend southward to take part of Benzie and Grand Traverse counties. The oval signifies 20 inches of snow; most of the oval is in Leelanau County.”

The storm nailed Manistee County too. David and Christine Flaugher, who own Verdant Farm near Copemish, couldn’t make it home from a meal on the town in Traverse City the night the storm hit. One of their lambs gave birth that night in the middle of the blizzard, and their boys Enoch, 14, and Nathanael, 12, acted quickly and moved the mother and healthy newborn into the barn the following morning.

And the storm reminded us all of what life was like before the convenience of electricity, easy heat, television and Internet. Through the anguish, many rediscovered what matters most in our daily lives — namely, family and community intimacy that doesn’t depend on a wireless router or reality television.

Here are a few perspectives from your northern Michigan neighbors on how they weathered the great winter storm of 2012 (with more words to come in the days ahead):

Anne-Marie Oomen, writer, Empire

I was attending a writing conference in Chicago, so I missed most of the big storm. But coming home Saturday night we got stranded in Grand Rapids. The hotel where we finally found rooms was also housing people who were attending pool, bowling and cheerleading conferences in the vicinity, plus travellers who finally pulled out of the maze of accidents and spinning vehicles on the expressways. Needless to say, the bar scene was more than rogue with a variety of folks and a live band from the seventies.

Once we did make it home, we went into resourceful mode. Because we have a woodstove, we can keep the home fires burning and the pipes from bursting. Like many, we thawed snow for washing and flushing, and warmed food by hand-lighting the propane stove. We made a sauna to bathe and took advantage of friends in Empire who had a generator (Gerry Shiffman was especially generous).

We moved our food outside into coolers, cleared the freezer, and I actually cleaned the refrigerator — first time since it was empty. Eventually, our resident flock of wild turkeys came to the back porch and the big boy tapped the window, so we fed them too from the greens that didn’t make it. We lit a lot of candles so we could read a little, and the house filled with the scent of melted wax to mix with the smoke of the stove.

What was most delightful and strange was the silence. A house without power is a house that holds the quiet of the old world. We curled around the fire and found ourselves listening to the wind in a different way — without the swish of energy underpinning it. We fell asleep listening to the hollow spaces that are usually full of the various musics of living. Though we live quiet lives, the hum of electricity is power (literally and figuratively) that runs through the walls of our buildings and the walls of our being. Without it, we were listening more deeply to breath. For those nights, our sleep was both more still and more alert — listening beyond the illusions of power.

At first, we were trying to hear something that over time, we had forgotten we were hearing. It had filled us and we didn’t know it. When it was no longer there, I was both more attentive and move vulnerable, listening … for what? More quiet? I liked that. Listening for more quiet. It grows if you listen deeply, becomes more, or we become more present to it, hearing the language of the silence as our authentic power. I expected it to tell me secrets — it would have, if I had been allowed to listen longer.

By the time Wednesday came, I was eager for the light (oh, the blessing of light) to return, but still, I’m thinking about when the power left, I was entranced with the richness and fullness of the unsound it gave in its passing.

Nancy Krcek Allen, chef and writer, Maple City:

“Our power went out Friday night while we were watching television. It was as if my mother had said, ‘Time to go to bed.’ And turned off the lights and television. So we went to bed at 8.30 p.m. I awoke at 4 a.m. with a bit of anxiety that we were the only ones who had no power so I got up and called Consumer’s Power. The recording said power wouldn’t be on until Tuesday evening. I still was in denial.

The next morning our phone was out. I had a large cooking class with 16 out on Old Mission Peninsula and wanted to make sure Chateau Chantal knew I wasn’t coming. When I insisted upon trudging a half mile down the road just to see if I could get cell service and ‘make sure,’ my husband looked at me as if to say I was nuts and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere today.’ Hmm. Still in denial. No cell service. And I couldn’t slog through the two feet of wet snow any further. Went home. A little frantic. No power, no heat, no music, radio or television, no work on computer and no iPhone or email. Thank the gods for my big black gas six burner stove. It kept the house tolerably warm. Husband went out to his studio to weld. Kept him warm and happy. Did I say I was a little frantic?

When the power finally came on after 75 hours I went to bed and lay there thinking of how much goes into the simple thing we call electricity. And I wondered if it will be sustainable in the future. (I was impressed with the people who hiked through snow to fix the power lines. And how many friends who had power suggested we come to stay with them or take showers or eat and so on. And how many people it took to get it all going again.)

The last crippling storm that I experienced was in 1979. It was a three-day affair and no one went anywhere because for three days the roads were impassable — there was just too much snow. I don’t remember the power going out. This storm was of shorter duration, but more severe because of the spring snow’s texture. Last year we were stuck for a day with the same kind of implacable, wet spring snow. It seems to be a pattern.

I loved how this storm disconnected me (and friends) from our ‘normal’ busy life and connected us to each other. It’s been a long time since I was forced to sit and be quiet with no distractions. It should happen once every year …”

Mimi Wheeler, owner, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, Empire

“We have extensive roofs on our octagonal house, and snow slid off the roof and blocked any sunlight on eight of the 16 window panes that connect us with outdoor natural light.

Forest, our 28-year-old foster daughter, arrived mid-evening on Friday night and barely made it down the gravel Echo Valley in her four-wheel-drive Subaru through the drifting snow. My husband Norm was playing with Jazz North in Traverse City, and we called to warn him not to attempt a trip back to Leelanau County with the fast growing accumulations of snow.

The electricity went off at around 9 p.m. that evening, and we lit a dozen candles to illuminate our cozy wooden house. By mid-morning on Saturday Forest shoveled a pathway to our driveway, where my car was hidden by a foot and a half of heavy snow. By that time, the path near the roof-line of our home was surrounding by six-foot walls, and the landscape was dramatic and looked like Narnia when the snow queen reigned.

Norm parked his car out on County Road 677 and walked three quarters of a mile home. I headed to Empire, primarily to check on the temperature inside my chocolate shop and whether any water pipes had burst. The county plow had declared most of our road was passable.

A sign posted outside the Empire Township Hall welcoming the community caught my eye, and my curiosity drove me inside. Three or four volunteers from the Red Cross welcome me with hot coffee, fresh water and snacks. Around two tables sat six or eight people who were chatting and sharing stories over the morning’s Record Eagle, whose headline read “Stay Home!”

Several residents from the apartments near the Methodist Church were assembled. Others at the township hall included residents who depended on electricity for heat and who had left their cold homes to be warm and take advantage of the generator there, which providing warmth and fresh water. I was not the only one there charging my dead cell phone and my iPad. Warm meals arrived shortly thereafter. A card game kept a few people busy. The atmosphere was positive and jovial. A few used the cots made available by the friendly Red Cross volunteers for a mid-morning nap, and a few had stayed overnight and would stay until electricity returned to their own homes.

An old friend, an elderly woman was among the community at the town hall. Her son told me later that he and his wife had stopped to encourage her to come home with them to their wood stove and warm house nearby, but the woman replied: “why would I leave while we are having a party here?”

Miriam Owsley, employee, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, Empire:

“I think my dad, John Owsley, put it well. ‘Getting the drive plowed after 23-inch overnight snow — $50. Kerosene for the heater — $18.49. Four days snowed in with no power, Internet, or cell phones, and my family gathered about — friction priceless!'”

Tom Ulrich, Deputy Superintendent, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore:

“The high was building a baby luge in the front yard and watching Zoe giggle her way down.”

Holly Hughes Reay, owner, Funistrada in Burdickville:

The high was kids learning to play and enjoy poker. The low was the tree bomb that went off in our front yard!”

Traci Apsey, Lighthouse Insurance, Empire

“I learned to love my snowmobile suit, but brothers inside for too long together creates a migraine for Mom.”