<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The recent floods that sometimes plague Ewen and Chassell are a reminder that we are not immune to weather related problems here in the Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 Annual flooding of the South Branch of the Ontonagon River at the M28 bridge in Ewen and the Sturgeon River Slough area crossed by US41 near Chassell seem to be our version of the swallows returning to San Capistrano, California.\u00a0 The proliferation of 24 hour news sites and streaming platforms puts us in the middle of the action during disasters of this type, but I am not so sure watching these events from afar gives us a true sense of how devastating flooding can be.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Personally, I have only been involved with one flooding event that threatened my family directly.\u00a0 It happened on Huron Bay when I was around nine or ten years of age.\u00a0 We had built our one room camp on the site of a former sawmill at the mouth of the Silver River.\u00a0 Looking over the water, right led upstream toward Silver Falls and to the left was the mouth where the\u00a0 river opened into the foot of Huron Bay.\u00a0 There were a half dozen grass islands and one larger wooded one that dotted the sandbars lining the two main river channels.\u00a0 We were accustomed\u00a0 to seeing the water level in the river rise and fall with the tides (more on them a bit later), but nothing that resembled a flood.\u00a0 Watching the chunks of ice race out into the bay in the spring was always kind of exciting, but again, one expected the river to run higher and faster during the spring melt.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One particular year was different.\u00a0 The snow melt coupled with rain had swollen the river to a level we had never seen before.\u00a0 The afternoon we were getting ready to head home, the tide came in and we watched as the river kept rising.\u00a0 The old camp was built on posts with a foot of clearance under the beams.\u00a0 The area where we built it was formerly a sandbar laid down back when the post glacial lake and river levels were higher.\u00a0 Right in front of the camp, there was a five foot bank that dipped to a cattail filled swamp that in turn ended at the river\u2019s edge.\u00a0 My mother actually got angry when the water began flowing under the camp and out into the yard between the main building and our storage shed.\u00a0 Fortunately, the tide began to recede and left no more damage than a few large puddles that quickly sank into the sandy soil.\u00a0 This, however, wasn\u2019t the scary part of the whole incident.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We packed up and headed the half mile down Papin Road (now known as Collins Road).\u00a0 When we hit the Townline Road and turned toward the Silver River bridge, we were in for a surprise.\u00a0 The road dipped toward the river and before us all we could see was water flowing\u00a0 out of the forest across the road from right to left.\u00a0 Twenty yards past all of this churning water, there stood the Silver River bridge, high and dry.\u00a0 The county crew had a couple of trucks and a small crane standing by to clear any debris that might put the bridge in danger and fifty yards beyond the bridge, there were a bunch of cars parked as people took in the spectacle unfolding at the bridge.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mom and dad discussed the alternatives and it was not hard to tell which one mom favored.\u00a0 The Townline Road was still gravel then.\u00a0 During the spring break up, it was a minefield of potholes all the way to Aura and then back toward L\u2019Anse.\u00a0 That is the direction mom wanted us to go.\u00a0 Dad had it in his head that if the roadbed was still solid, we should be able to navigate the water to the bridge and get on the paved road back to L\u2019Anse without jarring our fillings loose going the other way.\u00a0 Dad put on his hip waders, grabbed a stout branch from the woods and felt his way along toward the country guys hanging out on the bridge.\u00a0 The water never got more than thigh deep but we were still concerned what would happen if dad did find a hole in the roadbed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We watched him confer with the country guys for a bit and then he made his way back to the car.\u00a0 Dad reported, \u201cThey said the water between us and the bridge isn\u2019t moving nearly as fast as the water going under the bridge.\u00a0 They said they have a cable and winch on their truck and if we stall out, they can grab hold of our bumper and pull us through.\u201d\u00a0 Mom wasn\u2019t convinced and we could tell she wasn\u2019t keen on the idea of driving through a flooding river.\u00a0 I cast my vote for the potholed run toward Aura, but the matter was settled.\u00a0 We eased our Chevy sedan into the water and we (kids in the back seat) watched the water climb up the door toward the window.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Knowing what I know now, I would have been more concerned about what we were doing.\u00a0 The current wisdom says, \u201cNever drive your car into a flood – even a few inches of fast moving water can sweep you downstream.\u201d\u00a0 Thinking back, I am sure dad figured our 1952 Chevy had enough body weight to keep us on the road and, as the county crew pointed out, the water we were driving through was a lot more placid than the stuff flowing through the main channel and under the bridge.\u00a0 I was pretty calm until we drove out of the water and onto the bridge, only to see a very large log tumbling toward us in the main channel.\u00a0 The guy on the crane was just swinging into action when the log disappeared under the bridge and then popped up on the downstream side.\u00a0 \u2018Popped up\u2019 is probably too mild a description.\u00a0 When it cleared the bridge, this log shot up kind of like the missles you see being launched from a submarine.\u00a0 It resembled a killer whale leaping from the ocean as it flopped back down on the water with a tremendous splash.\u00a0 Mom remained quite calm and collected during the whole deal, but she did put an exclamation point on it when we turned on the Skanee Road toward L\u2019Anse:\u00a0 \u201cWe are NEVER doing that again!\u201d\u00a0 A little older and wiser as I like to think I am, I agree with her statement.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As mentioned earlier, we watched the tides come and go from our location at the foot of Huron Bay.\u00a0 Most people who spend time along the Lake Superior beaches probably aren\u2019t even aware there are tides on the big lake.\u00a0 As the Earth turns, it rotates into and then out of tidal bulges caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon.\u00a0 This causes a regular six hour cycle of high tides – low tide – high tide – low tide along the coastal areas.\u00a0 Ships carry tables so they can chart when to sail in or out of some harbors to take advantage of the deeper water caused by the high tides.\u00a0 It happens as regular as clockwork and twice a month, when the Sun and Moon are pulling together, slightly higher than normal high tides (called spring tides) will occur.\u00a0 When the Sun and Moon are at right angles to each other twice a month, lower than normal tides happen (called neap tides).\u00a0 Weather systems pushing water toward shore can also cause fluctuations in the tide levels and in hurricane season, we have all seen the devastation caused by these so-called \u2018storm surges\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Great Lakes are called \u2018inland seas\u2019 but they are not as big as the oceans.\u00a0 There are tides, but the combination of the size of the lakes and weather patterns affect their regularity.\u00a0 Rather than an oceanic six hour tide change, the pattern on the lakes is more irregular.\u00a0 On Huron Bay, we noticed the tides more than someone observing on a long beach because the narrowing of the bay toward the mouth of the Silver River amplified the effects.\u00a0 We observed the tides there usually came in two parts – kind of like the water was sloshing back and forth rather than coming in and going out.\u00a0 The tide would come in for a while, perhaps far enough to cover the sandbar at the mouth of the river.\u00a0 It would then go out for a time before reversing direction and coming back upstream for a longer period of time.\u00a0 The second \u2018slosh\u2019 would cover the sandbar with one or two feet of water before it reversed itself again.\u00a0 We had great fun running around on the sandbars waiting for the tide to turn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My cousin Wally put his engineering skills to work one summer and set up markers at camp and up the bay.\u00a0 He had his wife measure the water depth at camp every five minutes while he took a boat toward the end of the bay that opened into the big lake.\u00a0 At one point we had a copy of his records, but they have since disappeared. I do remember Wally\u2019s investigation mirrored the \u2018sloshing\u2019 effect of the tides on the bay we had been watching for years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If there was heavy weather on Lake Superior beyond the mouth of the bay, we found the tides were more extreme when the northerly winds pushed more water into Huron Bay.\u00a0 The water would come in faster and higher than normal, sometimes covering the sandbar with five or more feet of water.\u00a0 When that much water changed course and flowed back out into the bay, it would often lower the water level far enough that we could not take the boat out of the channel in front of the camp.\u00a0 My mother-in-law Ruth found out how quickly the tide could change when she spent a few days with us during our summer vacation.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We were experiencing higher than normal tides but not the ripping tide that happened on some occasions.\u00a0 Ruth was a very good swimmer and was on the sandbar in front of the dock.\u00a0 The sandbar was covered with enough water that she was neck deep standing on the tips of her toes.\u00a0 When the tide reversed course, it caught her off guard and she said, \u201cWell, the current is taking me around the point.\u201d\u00a0 We hustled the kids back to the dock and I jumped in our ever present row boat and chased after her.\u00a0 Forty yards past the point (which is actually an old slab dock from the sawmill days now overgrown with trees), I caught up to her and had her grab a hold of the back of the row boat.\u00a0 By the time I reached the point, the tide was running so fast I couldn\u2019t gain any headway so I grabbed the branch of a spruce tree and held us in one place.\u00a0 Ruth said, \u201cI am fine,\u201d and worked her way around the side of the boat until she could grab a branch on the same tree.\u00a0 \u201cI will just sit here until the tide slows down,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The neighbor upstream was a retired Chicago fireman and apparently he saw us struggling to get back to the dock.\u00a0 He donned his chest waders, grabbed a pike pole and came to give us a hand.\u00a0 When he got close enough I told him, \u201cWe are fine.\u00a0 If you come across the channel, you will be walking on slippery slabs of wood and if you slip, your waders are going to drag you into the big hole just around the point.\u201d\u00a0 It took a little convincing, but he eventually stood his ground until the tide slowed down and we were able to get back to the dock.\u00a0 Ruth said, \u201cI was fine.\u00a0 I could have just swam over to the grass island over there.\u201d\u00a0 No doubt that would have worked but she would also have been out of our line of sight so I am just as glad I was able to get her back to the point before the tide really started ripping.\u00a0 She was no worse for wear, but she took a nice nap on the recliner on the dock as we watched the tides run faster and faster for the rest of the day.\u00a0 Swimming would have to wait until things calmed down.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bruce Johanson and I made a trip to Marquette to pick up some furniture with his truck and we stopped to see his son-in-law at a car dealership in L\u2019Anse.\u00a0 We got talking about Keweenaw Bay and I related the story of my mother-in-law being swept away by the tide.\u00a0 He told us that when he was growing up in L\u2019Anse, it was a common practice for them to build rafts they would launch out into the bay.\u00a0 He said they would let the tide take them out and bring them back and the only paddling they had to do was to get back to shore.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the more interesting phenomenons we witness once in a while is called a \u2018seiche\u2019.\u00a0 These occur when one of these more extreme tides reverse and come back up the bay faster than normal.\u00a0 At camp, we could always hear the seiche coming before we saw it.\u00a0 When it rounded the bend, it would be a wave between six inches and a foot high that would signal the beginning of a very strong upstream flow.\u00a0 Those were the days we stayed out of the river because the current pushing this wave upriver would be very strong.\u00a0 The largest one we saw on Huron Bay was accompanied by an even larger one that happened on Keweenaw Bay at the same time.\u00a0 The next time you drive on the highway between Baraga and L\u2019Anse, picture a foot high wave coming up the bay followed by a rising tide that actually topped the highway.\u00a0 We heard about it when we came to town for groceries so we drove around the bay to have a look.\u00a0 Sure enough, there were still chunks of driftwood on either side of the road that had to be removed from the highway once the tide had receded.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Village of Ontonagon has known its share of flooding adventures.\u00a0 The most memorable was the April Fool\u2019s Day downtown flood of 1963 that was caused by an ice jam at the mouth of the Ontonagon River.\u00a0 Pictures of people navigating River Street in boats are enough of an explanation why the Rose Island berm was created.\u00a0 The flood gate installed at the upper end of the slough when the berm was raised would have blocked that channel to protect the downtown area.\u00a0 It was never used for that purpose and was recently removed and replaced with a new bridge.\u00a0 With the old swing bridge removed, we can only hope the slough flood gate that wasn\u2019t used in over forty years will (still) not be needed in the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Interestingly enough, one of the worst floods on the Ontonagon River system took place in the middle of the summer.\u00a0 A heavy downpour on the Ontonagon River watershed put so much water in the branches above Victoria Dam that the river overflowed the old bridge at the bottom of the Military Hill.\u00a0 If you drive over the newer Military Hill bridge, stop at the tourist pullout and walk to the lookout that was part of the old bridge.\u00a0 It boggles my mind to think of that river channel carrying enough water to overflow this bridge in the summer, but it happened.\u00a0 It does not take a degree in engineering to figure out why the new bridge was built much higher.\u00a0 This was considered\u00a0 a \u2018100 year flood\u2019, but it made sense to be prepared.\u00a0 After all, there is no rule that says 100 year flooding events only happen once.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 From 2018, the Derek Trucks Band performs Bob Dylan’s\u00a0Down in the Flood<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The recent floods that sometimes plague Ewen and Chassell are a reminder that we are not immune to weather related problems here in the Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 Annual flooding of the South Branch of the Ontonagon River at the M28 bridge in Ewen and the Sturgeon River Slough area crossed by US41 near Chassell seem 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