Legislation introduced in the state House this week would allocate $75 million in ice-storm relief for northern Michigan. This spending would meet the matching requirements for another $225 million of federal disaster relief.
Lawmakers say the money would reimburse communities recovering from the disaster, including support for repairing infrastructure, cleanup, emergency services and employment benefits for displaced workers.
State Rep. Parker Fairbairn (R-Harbor Springs) introduced the bill. He said reimbursement funds are desperately needed for northern Michigan communities.
"Our local road commissions and townships and counties are spending all of their year's budget in some cases on this," Fairbairn told WCMU. "They're needing some assurance that, you know; 'We're spending this money, are we going to get some sort of payback on this disaster.'”
The bill passed through committee Wednesday. Fairbairn says he expects bipartisan support for the legislation. Last week, Governor Gretchen Whitmer formally requested a Presidential Emergency Declaration for 12 counties and one Native American reservation.
“We had a lot of conversations with our colleagues, both in the Senate and the House, and of course the governor,” he said. “The governor's been supportive. She has been up to northern Michigan to see the damage firsthand," he said.
As of Thursday evening, over 1,200 utility customers in northern Michigan were still without power, 20 days after the storm pummeled the region. Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op, which serves over 33,000 members across northeast Michigan, said their entire network went offline during the storm. The rural co-op has replaced over 1,600 utility poles across their service area since the storm, they typically replace 500 a year.
“The pictures and videos cannot show the amount of devastation that’s up here,” said State Rep. Ken Borton (R-Gaylord). “I’ve talked to linemen who have worked across the country, and they’ve told me they’ve worked category five hurricanes that weren’t this bad. This widespread damage was unprecedented."
The historic ice storm has damaged hundreds of miles of forest, bringing down millions of trees across the 12 northern counties. Trails on state parks remain closed until further notice, as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources continues to assess the damage. So far, Clear Lake State Park in Atlanta is the only state park projected to not reopen on time. One fire chief in Lewiston told WCMU he's worried about the excess debris in the region and fearful of it leading to wildfires this summer.
"There is so much debris that’s just been pushed into the right-of-way because there’s nowhere for it to go and no one to clean it up because we’re running out of funding," Borton said. "We’ve exhausted our resources to the point that it’s created a tinderbox we need to address immediately.”
