The state House is poised to vote on legislation this week to allocate $75 million toward recovery efforts in northern Michigan following the massive ice storm that swept through the region last month.

The damage includes downed trees and utility poles, damage to buildings and schools and businesses forced to close.

State Rep. Parker Fairbairn (R-Harbor Springs) told the Michigan Public Radio Network that some communities would be bankrupted if they had to shoulder the cleanup and recovery costs on their own.

“The signal to people at the end of the day is, we’re here to help,” he said. “I mean, we’re estimating somewhere between $200- and $300 million worth of damage. I think it’s going to be much more than that and there’s a lot of things we can’t really estimate right now.”

The $75 million appropriation would help leverage another $225 million in federal disaster funds. If approved this week by the House, it would still have to be approved by the Michigan Senate.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has declared a state of emergency across much of northern Michigan. She also asked President Donald Trump for a federal emergency declaration which would make the area eligible for more federal relief.

There was also a bill introduced last week that would lift minimum school instructional day requirements for schools located in counties covered by the governor’s winter storm emergency decree. Those counties include Alcona, Alpena, Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Emmet, Mackinac, Montmorency, Oscoda, Otsego and Presque Isle.

Rep. Cam Cavitt (R-Cheboygan) said it does not make sense to require students to remain in school to make up days lost due to a natural disaster.

“Our students just went through one of the most horrifying storms they will ever experience,” said Cavitt in a written statement.

“Things have been hard…We need to take steps to help these kids and their families, not force them to sit in schools that lack air conditioning until July.”

An ice storm at the end of March caused widespread damage throughout northern Michigan.

The Department of Natural Resources says an untold number of trees and power poles snapped or fell over under the weight of an inch or more of ice. Some landed on people’s houses, causing roof damage.

Some trees look like toothpicks

DNR Incident Response Team spokesperson Kathleen Lavey says the coating was so thick it bent pine trees out of shape.

“And we have hardwood trees that have lost a lot of their top branches due to the weight of the ice,” she said. “It’s kind of shocking when you’re looking at it.”

Lavey says people traveling north on I-75 between Gaylord and Mackinaw City will see many broken trees this spring.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in 12 counties where thousands of homes and businesses lost power for several days. She also mobilized the Michigan National Guard to help the DNR and local authorities remove fallen trees and branches from hundreds of miles of roads.

Lavey says DNR staff showed Guard members how to use chain saws to clear large tree trunks.

“Our No. 1 goal is to get trees out of the roadways so that people can drive as needed, especially for emergency purposes, and so kids could go back to school,” she said.

Things have mostly returned to normal up north, but the ice storm’s impact will last for weeks, maybe months.

The DNR has temporarily closed many state parks, trails and campgrounds. The agency expects to reopen them in time for the tourism season.

More fuel for wildfires

The amount of tree debris on the ground has also raised concerns about of wildfires in northern Michigan. The DNR responded to almost two dozen wildfires in mid-April. Lavey says as trunks and branches dry out, they provide extra fuel for wildfires. Insects and disease are another concern.

More: Michigan DNR prepares for wildfire season

“A tree that has damage to its bark is more susceptible to like a fungal infection or to insects penetrating the tree, and we do have some concerns about forest health that we’re also going to be trying to address,” she said.

Lavey also warns people to watch for loose branches hanging in trees.

“The old loggers back in the day used to call them widow-makers,” she said. “If one landed on you, you were done.”

Forests will recover

Lavey says the ice storm has changed the appearance of Michigan’s forests, but their resilience ensures they’ll recover.

“Forests are used to having a reset every now and then,” she said. “They will persevere, and we will help them.”

Michigan State Police offer ice storm recovery updates and resource information online.

In communities around Little Traverse Bay, the snow and ice is starting to melt but clear signs of destruction remain.

It’s being called the worst ice storm in northern Michigan in modern history, knocking out power to about 100,000 homes and businesses.

One week later, fallen trees still line the road shoulders. Dozens of utility vehicles are parked behind orange cones. And hundreds were still without power as of April 4.

The workers who’ve poured in from across the state are getting the job done. According to outage maps, power started coming back on in downtown areas at the end of last week.

But some residents say recovery from the ice storm will take more than just turning the lights back on.

Power restored to cities

At the Community Reformed Church in Charlevoix, volunteers packed away pans of ground beef. Over the past few days, they worked by lantern light to serve hot meals to those seeking shelter.

Lights at the church came back on Wednesday. Buns, chips and sloppy joe mix were left over and the group that came for lunch Thursday was smaller than it was earlier in the week.

To Pastor Chip Sauer, those are good signs.

“Power lines have been down all over the place. It is like the apocalypse, like a bomb exploded,” he said. “In the city, it doesn’t feel like that anymore. It’s gotten back to normal. The lights are on. The restaurants are open. But there’s still a handful of people [without] power.”

The situation is much the same further north in Petoskey.

Many gas stations are reopened, providing critical fuel for line workers and generators. City Manager Shane Horn says about 95% of Petoskey’s service area had power as of Thursday, April 3.

The quick turnaround, he said, is owed to the city’s mostly underground power lines.

“Having that percent of our community undergrounded has truly been a blessing in that we don’t have similar issues that other communities have with downed power lines and utility pole issues,” Horn said.

Rural communities still in response phase

While cities are starting to see a return to normal, those living in more rural areas are still in what emergency managers call “the response phase.”

Great Lakes Energy, which still has nearly 20,000 customers without power, established a camp for utility workers in Otsego County on Saturday — one of the hardest hit areas. GLE chief executive Shaun Lamp said the company hopes to “substantially restore” many areas by April 8, it could take longer for more backcountry areas.

On the north side of Little Traverse Bay in Harbor Springs, Shay Elementary School served as one of the busiest warming stations in the area.

City police officers were stationed at the front entrance, keeping a list of names in front of stacks of water bottles. Nurses with the American Red Cross brought dozens of cots that lined the school’s cafeteria.

The people who had to stay the night were mostly elders. That’s because a housing community for low-income seniors called the Village of Hillside lost power. Some had to stay to power oxygen machines or get medication.

“Nobody wants to leave home and sleep in a school with all these people, but I think they’ve become accustomed to it,” said Matthew Bush, Hillside’s service coordinator. “I mean, they’ve come to realize that there’s not much of a choice. It’s either this or be very, very cold.”

Despite this, the attitude at Shay Elementary is positive, especially among the volunteers.

“It’s been overwhelming in, like, a really great way, but also just a really devastating way at the same time,” said Jessica Mills, a fourth grade teacher at Shay Elementary who’s been helping coordinate the shelter. “Initially, I was just watching the door to let people in and make sure they got settled and answered questions. Since then, I was kind of made the point person.”

The school’s cafeteria is staffed by restaurant workers from downtown Harbor Springs. They’ve been serving free hot meals three times a day since the shelter opened.

“Everyone has been helping, like the police officers’ wives have all been with their parents, my parents, like the whole community, has really just come together,” Mills said. “And we couldn’t have done it without every single other person.”

Mills said she’s eager for recovery to begin and that she hopes her school reopens soon. Helping out has been a good distraction but she’s eager to check in on all her students she hasn’t seen in days. Some of their families, she said, will deal with the aftermath of this storm for months.

“I just think there’s so much we need to do. People have gone days without being able to contact their loved ones because the service has been atrocious. People’s fridges are going to need to be cleaned out,” she said. “It just feels like any support would help.”

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Interlochen Public Radio on April 7, 2025.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Interlochen Public Radio on March 31, 2025.

Relief from a brutal ice storm — which left thousands without power across Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula — could be a few days off yet, according to forecasts.

Police officers are using chain saws to clear roadways.

Gas stations are unable to pump fuel because the power is out.

And warming centers are open as cold temperatures persist.

These are just a few of the effects of a massive ice storm that has brought parts of northern Michigan to a standstill.

Temperatures are expected to stay near or below freezing through Wednesday across much of the region, which means there won’t be a lot of melting any time soon. The nearest warmup is expected Thursday, with temperatures in the low-to-mid 40s.

Meteorologists are describing the weekend’s ice storm as historic.

“Mid- to southern Michigan received a pretty nasty ice storm in 1976,” said Sean Christensen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gaylord. “That’s honestly the only one we could find that was nearly this widespread and damaging.”

Christensen said even some National Weather Service employees had to sleep at the weather station due to road blockages and power outages.

“We had the perfect setup for northern Michigan to see reports of almost an inch or over of ice,” Christensen said.

That perfect weather setup is exceptionally rare.

“You have to have a lot of cold air to the north and then a lot of warm, moist air coming up from the south,” said Marty Baxter, a professor of meteorology at Central Michigan University. “It’s unusual to have those two things so close together for a significant period of time.”

The warm, moist air from the south is less dense, Baxter said, and sat on top of freezing surface temperatures. Rain fell from that warm system above, then froze as it accumulated in the cold system.

Though responders are working to restore power and clear roads, northern Michiganders might not be out of the woods yet.

“Upcoming weather-wise, we still have a couple things that normally wouldn’t be a big deal” but could make an already bad situation worse, said Christensen, with the National Weather Service in Gaylord.

Temperatures are expected to drop Monday night, raising concern about freezing pipes and cold conditions in homes without power.

Another round of mixed precipitation could come through midweek.

“Sleet, snow, and we can’t even rule out freezing rain,” Christensen said. “We’re not expecting accumulations nearly as bad, but nonetheless, it’s still going to be poor roadway conditions.”

The National Weather Service is urging people to remain in place at home or at a warming shelter unless absolutely necessary.

Extreme winds and thunderstorms in southern Michigan caused damage to homes and power lines there, too, which could slow repairs across the state.

Keeping up with it all

The storm has brought much of life to a standstill in the area, with school and business closures. McLaren Health said its outpatient clinics are closed, though emergency departments remain open and fully functional.

In Wolverine, just off I-75’s Exit 301, officials moved a warming center from the fire department to the local high school, because of high demand.

Police officers were using chainsaws to help clear downed trees from roadways and other areas.

And emergency responders were inundated with calls for help.

“We’ve responded to almost 80 calls in the last 48 hours,” said Allie Ronk, a dispatcher with the Little Traverse Bay Band tribal police who was volunteering at the Wolverine Fire Department on Monday morning. “There are some years we respond to under 100 calls. The sheer volume is more than our area can take, and we’re still getting repeat calls.”

The biggest concern was fuel, with many gas stations out of power and unable to pump gas for vehicles and generators.

“Stay home, stay safe,” Ronk said, or go to a warming station if needed.

Meanwhile, hundreds of utility crews were working across Michigan to get the lights back on following storms that encased the northern Lower Peninsula in ice, and severe thunderstorms that raked across southern Michigan on Sunday night.

In northern Michigan, several inches of ice added enormous strain to electrical lines and power poles, or snapped branches and toppled trees, bringing down power lines and making roads impassible. People are asked to stay off the roads if possible.

Consumers Energy says it is on track to have power restored in many places by Tuesday, with another day needed for the harder hit areas.

But some damage will be longer lasting.

Radio station WKHQ lost its tower in the storm. The 600-foot broadcast antenna collapsed.

Private residences also experienced damage from falling trees and limbs.

IPR will continue to update this story as we learn more.