Many Leelanau homeowners are hoping the governor’s state of disaster proclamation following the Aug. 2 megastorm will help fund their debris cleanup. Unfortunately, they may find those hopes dashed, especially if they expect financial help any time soon.
“Where were you when . . .?” None of us will ever forget, and so now we will always trade our stories of this shared local tragedy. Waiting for Kelly McAllister to make me a malted, I gazed through the windows of McCahill’s Crossing Dairy Bar at the Glen Lake Narrows to see the eerie white cloud front race at terrific speed eastward across Little Glen Lake. Instantly the air was a greenish blue-black chaos of horizontal hail, thick rain, and leaves. Heedless of the danger, we gawked out the big windows at plunging power lines, frantic trees, and the growing line of cars refusing to cross the narrows and the bridge they couldn’t see because the lake was airborne. When the lights went out for good Kelly calmly called Consumers on her cell. We only had to inch around one tree as we drove homeward on Benzonia Trail minutes later. Countless others were not so lucky, and their stories have been our daily bread for a frantically memorable, strange, and communal cleanup of a week.