Upper Peninsula Vacation Area Continues Flood Recovery Efforts

Houghton County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is making progress as it recovers from the June 17 storm that flooded homes and washed out roads.

Infrastructure repair costs for the entire county could be as high as $100 million, said to Eric Waara, Houghton city manager.

“Just within the city itself, we are at about $14 million. That’s a big number for a town of 7,700 people,” Waara said. “Our neighboring city, the city of Hancock is somewhere around $10 million.”

Waara said his crews have been working overtime to repair city streets. Meanwhile, he said local government leaders are hoping federal and state aid will defray some of the costs.

“We’re hemorrhaging cash trying to get things fixed,” Waara said. “A lot of us have started tapping into the money we use to remove snow every winter. Our city spends about a million dollars every winter removing snow. We hope that some assistance will come through so we can replenish those funds with winter coming.”

Waara has even pressed snow removal equipment into service.

“Fortunately a lot of the equipment we use for snow removal is really handy for summertime construction, so progress has been going fairly well. We’ve made just about everything safe at this point in time,” Waara said.

Most, but not all city streets and county roads are now passable.

Eli Karttunen of the Houghton Rotary Club is urging tourists not to cancel summer vacations to the Lake Superior region.

“For the most part the Keweenaw Peninsula is open for business and really tourism is needed more than ever,” Karttunen said. “We have seen some businesses have cancellations and that can only make the problem worse for the area.”

The Rotary Club has set up a pass-through account at the Keweenaw Community Foundation to help homeowners who were hurt by the flood. The Portage Health Foundation is also collecting money for victims.

An estimated 900 homes were damaged.

“Some homes were lost. There were others where the basements were filled with filth and mud and boulders. Things that we’re used to seeing on television were happening in our own neighborhoods,” Karttunen said. “The vast majority of people are not insured for this type of a loss. Flood insurance is very difficult to get, if at all possible, in Houghton County.”

The Rotary Club is reaching out to skilled workers outside the region to help homeowners repair furnaces, hot water heaters and drywall.

“If somebody is licensed in the trades and may be willing to lend a hand for the weekend, we’d be glad to host them and give shelter and make their trip up here as easy as possible,” Karttunen said.

Waara said homeowners need box fans and dehumidifiers. He said even though it’s July, they are racing the clock against the onset of winter.

“We’ve got about four months before the snow comes again,” Waara said. “Basically, you better be done with construction by the time Halloween rolls around or winter is going to shut you down whether you want it to or not.”