The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has closed hiking, biking and off-road vehicle (ORV) trails indefinitely in the 12 counties for which Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency on March 31.
The emergency declaration came after parts of the northern Lower Peninsula and eastern Upper Peninsula were covered in snow and ice over the course of multiple days at the end of last month.
Thick ice coated nearly everything and brought down countless trees, limbs and branches. As of Monday evening, power companies in the region were still working to restore service to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. DNR Parks and Recreation Chief Ron Olson says while the bad weather has passed, the risk of falling limbs hasn’t. He says the trails are closed because of the danger of “hangers”.
“A lot of times with ice storms, branches will break off the top [of trees] and get hung up. We call them ‘hangers’,” Olson said. “And then when the wind blows later on, they can fall indiscriminately.”
In the parlance of the logging industry, a broken tree limb hanging freely, waiting to fall, is called a “widowmaker” for the risk it poses to anyone on the ground beneath it.
Olson said the damage in state campgrounds across the region wasn’t worse than a few broken picnic tables. Crews are proceeding to clean up the fallen tree debris in the campgrounds, which Olson said should be ready for campers in time for the Memorial Day rush — though he did say roughly 25 camping reservations had to be cancelled while cleanup continued.
On the trails deeper in the woods, Olson says assessing damage and clearing the way is more difficult and time-consuming. Olson says the DNR is mobilizing crews outfitted with chainsaws and wood chippers to clean up. But the timeline for re-opening state-managed trails in the area is still “up in the air”.
Though many trails are officially closed, Olson knows people will be longing to get out on the trails once the weather warms up.
“At any rate, we want to have people use caution when they go out,” Olson said. “Realize that in particular those hangers up in the air could be a problem.”
Seemingly more extensive than the damage to state-owned infrastructure, was the hardship the storm caused thousands of residents and businesses across the region. Eight days after Whitmer’s emergency declaration for the 12 northern counties, nearly 40,000 customers of local utility companies were still waiting to have their electricity service restored.
The two largest power companies in the region, Presque Isle Electric & Gas Cooperative and Great Lakes Energy, said they are aiming to have power restored to a “significant” number of customers still in the dark by the end of Monday or Tuesday.
