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Jaden Gibson: Parts of Northeast Michigan were some of the hardest hit by an ice storm that swept across the region on Monday. Tens of thousands still remain without power today after heavy ice crushed trees and brought down power lines, forcing crews to work around the clock to clear roadways.
WCMU's Tina Sawyer spoke with Alcona County Undersheriff Keith Myers to get an update on the latest conditions.
Keith Myers: We are better off than what we were Monday. We have started to get some areas in the county that are back online electric-wise, but they're sporadic.
There's still a lot of ice on the trees. So one of our concerns was something that we learned from last year's ice storm, was that even though we may clear road, the roads may get cleared by the road commission, or the power lines get fixed from the power company, we then would have trees fall again.
Right now, we haven't seen too much of that. So we're kind of keeping our fingers crossed.
Tina Sawyer: How is your staff holding up with this?
KM: We're fully staffed in our central dispatch. We're fully staffed on our road deputies.
And we're taking care of that right now, doing a lot of well-being checks, checking on, you know, family members that maybe haven't been able to be contacted, whether that be because cell phone service is kind of sporadic or if it's just being overwhelmed, which is a good possibility.
TS: Are there any resources that you need or the community needs at this moment?
KM: Not at this moment. I think we're pretty well set.
We have a lot of warming centers. They all are mostly at township halls. They're all operating off of generators right now, unless they have electricity. And the areas that do have electricity, like the Village of Lincoln, we're running the Alcona Elementary School as a 24-hour warming center.
My understanding is that the ACCOA, which would be basically our new senior center or community center, they are open. They have electricity, they're open.
TS: Are those warming centers filled?
KM: The one at the elementary school opened late yesterday, so...
I think they said they had about five or six people there last night that stayed through the night. But Caledonia Township Hall, which is up in Spruce and that Hubbard Lake area, the report that I got this morning was that they had about 60 there last night.
TS: Yeah, and I know with people being kind of shut in, was there any safety tips for people who are still without power?
KM: Yeah, you know, the usual, let's stay away from, you know, downed power lines.
But if you do need to get out, by all means, you know, call our central dispatch and what I've been telling people is, maybe they don't live in the area, but their parents do, their elderly parents, by all means, call us.
We'll go out and do a well-being check on them and try to get them to a warming center or get them any help that they need.
As a matter of fact, we just had one this morning. The deputy went out to the house and come to find out the problem the lady had was she just couldn't get her garage door open. I don't know whether it was frozen or whether it was from a garage door opener that she couldn't disconnect, but the deputy was able to do that and she was able to drive herself to the warming center.
TS: So have you ever seen anything like this before?
I know obviously the ice storm last year was a big one, but with the snow, is this something that you've seen before?
KM: Yeah, we kind of got hit with a hit with a right and then a left. So we had the snow that came through on Friday. That was heavy, heavy, wet, you know, with the rain and stuff. Then we had some more, a little bit more snow on Saturday, and then we had this ice storm on Sunday.
What I will say as far as compared to last year, is my opinion and some and opinions of a lot of others that I've talked to is that this storm, for us anyhow, is worse than it was last year.
TS: How so?
KM: Well, last year's ice storm kind of caught part of the county, but part of the county was untouched. this year pretty much the whole county has been affected by it.
JG: That was Alcona County Undersheriff Keith Myers. If you are still without power or need assistance in Alcona County, you are encouraged to contact the county's emergency services.
