Ten years after Glen Arbor’s megastorm: Vicious winds birthed Patrick Niemisto’s song “Sand”
Travis, a sawyer from Traverse City, removed one of hundreds of trees that damaged homes in the Glen Lake region during the Aug. 2, 2015 megastorm. Photo by Stephen Brotschul
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
Local musician Patrick Niemisto was just set to play at the Little Traverse Inn when the big storm of August 2, 2015, came howling through. He had set up inside as everyone knew big weather was coming.
“Suddenly there was stuff flying in the air outside, and the power went out right away. M-22 was blocked just east of the Inn, and stranded folks came into the Inn and hung out,” he recalled.
So Niemisto played acoustic music for “three or four” hours, then managed to pick his way home on back roads. A couple of days later he ran into Tim Kirchner at Lake Ann Grocery.
“Tim was voluntarily going around cutting trees with a chainsaw to help people out. The sense of helping people was everywhere, with shelter and food at the Glen Arbor Town Hall, Tim Barr grilling outside the dark of Art’s Tavern all day, and so on. That sense of community, along with the sense that we all have our own special places, our sacred spots in The County, is where the song ‘Sand’ came from. That people really care for each other and want to help out seems to contrast with our current divisiveness.”
The megastorm that pummeled Glen Arbor on that memorable Sunday afternoon 10 years ago packed straight-line wind speeds of more than 100 miles per hour—equivalent to a tornado or a type-2 hurricane. The winds toppled tens of thousands of trees, particularly on Alligator Hill and on the north side of Big Glen Lake, and knocked out power for a week during the height of the tourism season. No one died, desperate several near misses and dramatic stories.
We devoted our entire Aug. 13, 2015, edition to coverage of the storm and Glen Arbor’s community resilience that followed, as neighbors helped neighbors. Much of the nation tuned into the coverage: “Glen Arbor” was briefly the top trending term on Facebook, and in the days after the Aug. 2 storm, our website, GlenArbor.com, attracted more than 100,000 views.
Niemisto has been writing songs since childhood, and attended at least 15 years of workshops at Lamb’s Retreat for Songwriters. You can hear him around the area most nights playing at one of the many live music venues. Below are the lyrics for ‘Sand’ by Patrick Niemisto:
There’s something about feeling of the sand between your toes
As you walk along the beach, at the end of the County Road
Water soft as whispers, wash away your tracks
Erasing any doubt, that you’ll be coming back
A promise is a promise so they say
You can only handle so much beauty at one time, at one place
Days make of sunshine, sunshine made of sand
You can only hold so much, only hold so much,
Only hold so much…in your hand
The legends and the stories that she keeps
Shrouded in the sacred mysteries of the deep
The power of the stillness, the power of the storm
Known to all of us, who live upon these shores
A promise is a promise so they say
You can only handle so much beauty at one time, at one place
Days make of sunshine, sunshine made of sand
You can only hold so much, only hold so much,
Only hold so much…in your hand
There is a special place that I’ve found
This is where I go when I’m feeling a little down
I throw all my troubles to the spirit of the waves
And just like footprints, she washes them away
A promise is a promise so they say
You can only handle so much beauty at one time, at one place
Days make of sunshine, sunshine made of sand
You can only hold so much, only hold so much,
Only hold so much…in your hand.
This is part of our series celebrating songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Previous installments in our Songs of Leelanau series featured Ingemar Johansson’s “Pearl of America,” Laura Hood’s “Eddy Up,” Les Dalgliesh’s “The Ways of Leelanau,” Jeff Maharry’s “Good Harbor Bay,” Seth Bernard’s instrumental ode to the Manitou Islands, Blake Elliott’s “Small Town” and Louann Lechler’s “I’m Proud to Say I Live in Leelanau County.”
