Ice Storm!

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to share these pictures, but we've been busy cleaning up after the ice storm. (We have to get all of our broken branches and trees put out by the road by April 20. Starting on the 21st, the people hired by the city are coming through with a woodchipper to get rid of all of it.)

Thankfully Mackinac is in pretty good shape!

As you can see, a lot of ice built up during the storm causing numerous trees to fall and knocking out power to much of northern Michigan - including Mackinac Island. All night long it sounded like a warzone. We heard near-constant popping, bullet-like sounds as small branches broke off the trees all around us. Every few minutes there were loud cracking noises as larger trees broke under the weight of the ice and collapsed. It sounded like buildings disintegrating as the trees, encased in ice, snapped and tumbled to the ground. We have a number of large trees growing around our house, so at any moment one of them could have hit us. Neither Allen or I slept very well that night.

By morning, the ice covered everything,

and I mean everything; an inch thick in some places.

Allen and I were very lucky. 

  

A large branch took out the corner of our chicken yard, but the house came through unscathed and the chickens were fine, too.) We lost lots of smaller branches, but nothing bigger around than my thigh.

Many of our neighbors weren't so lucky. 

All in all, Mackinac Island fared pretty well. We did lose power, but only for a few days. (I have friends in Petoskey and Gaylord who were out for over a week.) Our fire, police, and state park staff were out constantly cutting trees to keep the roads open for emergency vehicles, and the boat line even ran a special boat to get the electric linemen and women over to the island. 

The city opened the Mackinac Island Community Hall as a warming center and charging station for anyone who needed it. Allen kept us going at home by breaking out the camp stove so I could have a hot cup of coffee every morning. The house got a little chilly - I think it got down to about 57 (about 14 C,) but we managed. We crawled under my mom's house and shut her water off, just to be safe.

School was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday due to a lack of power at the school, and again on Wednesday due to safety concerns over students traveling on ice-covered roads. In my 32 years of teaching on Mackinac Island, we've never cancelled three days in a row! But we've also not had a storm like this in my years here.

The days after the storm were beautiful, with bright sunny skies. The ice sparkled like crystals in the trees. When the wind blew, it cracked and shattered, and then clinked to the ground like cacophony of  shattering glass. It was an eerily beautiful sound. 

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to see how we're doing. Mackinac is recovering. This summer the lilacs probably won't be as spectacular as in years past, but they are hard to kill. (Allen refers to them as the zombies of the plant world.) In a year or two, they be as beautiful as ever. We're cleaning up, and the island will be open for business as usual this summer.