Fires and Floods: A State of the Lake Special Report

The relentless roar stays with her.

When Deb and Jim Sanders opened the door to their rural home near Wawa, Ontario, in the wee hours of that October 2012 morning, they had to shout to hear each other. Beside their home, tiny Brient Creek, usually a few inches deep and trickling toward Lake Superior, had swollen into a rushing torrent determined to swallow the house. The water had gone up, down and up again during the night. It had taken the front porch. Deb had hastily thrust their cats, Minnie and Samantha, inside pillowcases. Maggie, their husky/shepherd-mix dog, hovered beside them. The water had risen to 2 feet in the kitchen, and Jim decided they must leave despite the potential danger outside.

Blackness surrounded them; no city lights was one charm of their home overlooking Michipicoten Harbour. Now in that darkness they had to navigate around the consuming waters. Deb trusted Jim’s instinct to leave, but where to go? Their dog Maggie notoriously disliked loud noises. The rain and ceaseless roar disturbed her. She chose a path. Jim and Deb followed, headed toward safety, they hoped.

---

Spring 2012 had come early to Duluth, with most all of the snow gone by March (Duluth’s hottest March on record) and no late-winter storm bringing any extra moisture. So when the rains started a couple days earlier and continued the evening of June 20, the cloudbursts seemed likely to ease the dry spell. Peter Pruett, director of zoo operations at Lake Superior Zoo, checked the grounds before leaving for his home five minutes away. Kingsbury Creek was high, but no worse than the usual spring melt. He never expected a 3 a.m. phone call from a zoo security guard, who heard a police-scanner report of a seal wandering on Grand Avenue. Peter knew of only two seals in Duluth – the zoo’s two harbor seals.

Peter arrived to flashing police lights and to Feisty, the seal, on the loose. He went to fetch a board to direct the seal home and checked the road to the seals’ polar shores exhibit. Water blocked his way; only the top of that exhibit building showed. “That’s when I knew we had some problems,” Peter says. He hastily called the zoo veterinarian. After all, he didn’t know the whereabouts of the exhibit’s 450-pound resident. “Both seals are out,” he told the vet. “I think the polar bear is out. I’ve got to get a seal off of Grand Avenue.”

---

Just one month earlier, May 2012, in Newberry, Michigan, Mary Archambeau was busying herself in the Luce County Community Resource and Recreation Center. Founded in 1997, the center filled a community need – a place for youth to gather after school and on weekends. Operated solely by donations, it provides snacks and activities. Everyone fondly calls it “The Link,” says Mary, because “we link everybody together – who needs and who’s got. That’s what we do all the time.”

So when she got the call that there were fires – first near Seney and then Duck Lake – and that the firefighters and the evacuees needed a gathering space, it didn’t take long for Mary to adjust. “Now it’s time to switch over,” she told the kids hanging out there. “Now we’re the Duck Lake Fire Center.” The center hours also switched to 24/7 – the center wouldn’t close again until the need ended. …

---

The world didn’t end in 2012 – despite a few wacky predictions – but it seems like it wasn’t for lack of trying as we look back at the unnatural “natural” disasters around Lake Superior that put national spotlight on our region.

May started the year of disasters when a lightning strike about May 24 ignited a fire 15 miles east of Paradise near Duck Lake that destroyed 136 structures, including a motel, a store, and year-round and seasonal homes.

On the other side of the Big Lake, the “two” of that month’s one-two punch followed May 28 when 105 millimetres (4 inches) of rain fell on Thunder Bay – more rain, in just a few hours, than the city typically receives in all of May. The deluge, preceded by days of heavy rain, overwhelmed a wastewater treatment plant, flooded hundreds of basements with sewage and washed out roads.

Then on June 19-20 came “500-year” drenching rains in the Duluth area, delivering 7.25 inches in 48 hours and unleashing flash floods that rerouted streams, overwhelmed water systems and caused evacuation of 250 or so residents.

Things settled during the summer, but the year delivered one more blow. An October 25 blast of rain – 133 millimetres (5.2 inches) in nine hours – in Wawa, Ontario, toppled one home, blew out roads and bridges, cutting off the Michipicoten First Nation and other areas and left a motel hanging over a trench cut by the flood water.

After all that, it might really seem like we’ve been victims of an ancient curse, but the heart of the issue lies closer to what has been happening globally for the past century, according to regional weather and climate experts.

Abnormal May Be Normal

Fires, flash floods and droughts are not new, says climatologist Mark Seeley, a University of Minnesota professor and author of Minnesota Weather Almanac, but the frequency and intensity of events is increasing.

“What’s convincing us that all of these things may be related to climate change is that we’re starting to run out of historical analogies,” Mark says. “The climate is signaling us that it’s going to behave differently.”

In general, temperatures in the United States have risen an average of 1.3° F in the last 100 years and in Canada by about 1.4° C in the last 60 years. The Lake Superior region appears to be on the hot edge of temperature changes. In Climate Central’s report on the U.S. states with the fastest rate of temperature increase since 1970, you’ll find three familiar names in the top five: 1) Arizona; 2) Michigan; 3) Minnesota; 4) Wisconsin and 5) Vermont – all logging about 0.6° F increase in average temperature per decade.

“We seem to be in one of the more vulnerable and extreme areas,” says Paul Huttner, chief meteorologist with Minnesota Public Radio.

Meanwhile, University of Minnesota Duluth Associate Professor Jay Austin believes that less ice cover in winter and warmer summers may be heating Lake Superior even faster than the air above it. By July in 2012, the buoys Jay monitors in his research at the Duluth-based Large Lakes Observatory recorded surface water temperatures in the low 70° F range, some 20° F above average.

“What does that mean?” Mark says of the northern temperature increase. “Probably that we’re going to have relatively bigger adjustment, from the point of adaptation.”

Warmer average temperatures don’t mean an end to sub-zero days in our neck of the woods. What weather and climate watchers see are nature’s dramatic mood swings.

“In one year, 2012,” says Mark, “we have measured the all-time highest flow volume and the all time lowest flow volume on the St. Louis River. … It’s not just a roll of the dice that that all happened in one year. … The way this is playing out, year after year, is very disconcerting.”

How do climate and weather relate? At an October conference, “Living with Uncertainty: Duluth Streams in the Aftermath of the 2012 Floods,” Paul put it this way: “Weather is what you wear. Climate is what you pack.”

We may need to pack for greater variables, according to Paul: “Prolonged periods of drought punctuated by these heavy rain events.”

Some climate models suggest an average of a foot less of snow in the Midwest by 2088. For Lake Superior, Paul anticipates continued lack of ice cover most winters, allowing more evaporation and fluctuating water levels. A warmer Lake also will fuel varying weather patterns.

“This is a very good perspective to share with your readers,” Mark says, “that what’s going on is having consequences. We have to start thinking how to adapt.”

But to what are we adapting?

“In some ways, it’s impossible to predict the form the next severe event will take,” says Duluth Mayor Don Ness.

Community Adaptation

Planning for the “100-year” rainfall, flood or blizzard once prepared a city for most weather worst-case scenarios.

Today that’s not the case, says Mayor Ness, as his city reviews a multimillion-dollar price tag on road, bridge, waterway and structural repairs after the June flood. Build for the 100-year event was the old way of thinking, he says. “In my mind, we need to build for an even larger event.”

In Duluth, the human emergency systems worked well, with police, firefighters and road crews out and no serious injuries or deaths. (There was a small miracle when an 8-year-old Louisiana boy visiting Proctor was swept about six blocks through the culverts, then found with minor injuries.)

“I’m very proud of our emergency response,” Don says. “You had raging streams, you had massive sinkholes, streets collapsing … and we survived the storms without fatalities.”

The non-human systems did not fare as well. Duluth’s 347 miles of sanitary sewers and 49 pump stations held up as well as could be expected, though unavoidable overflow did occur. The city recently upgraded its sewer system, building huge catch basins for overrun, part of an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to stop sewage from reaching Lake Superior.

But the stormwater systems, which integrate with streams and rivers running through the city, became more than overloaded. Rushing waters overwhelmed the stream beds and altered the course of some streams.

The geology of the city greatly influenced the where and how of the flood damage, say UMD Assistant Professor Karen Gran and Molly Wick, a student in UMD’s Water Resources Science Graduate Program. They led a team that monitored 41 city rivers and streams after the flood, surveying culvert and road damage, washed-out streambeds and alterations that may affect habitat.

In Duluth, as with many shoreside communities, the steep inclines that carry water down to Lake Superior resemble mountain streams with one important difference. In the mountains, the sharpest descent usually happens early in the watershed and levels off as the streams reach lakes or other outlets. On Lake Superior, the steepest drops – with the most velocity – come at the end. “The power is closer to the mouth of the river,” explains Karen.

Duluth’s flood waters picked up speed and sediments, then crashed into the Lake and lakeshore neighborhoods. One of the hardest hit was the Fond du Lac neighborhood near the St. Louis River; about 250 residents were evacuated. Other parts of the city, even at the foot of the hill in the popular Canal Park area, suffered almost no damage.

Forest managers have been adapting, too. Droughts put stress on forests, as can increased infestations of native and invasive pests. Dried undergrowth and dead or dying trees make a forest more vulnerable and volatile in fires. Yet fires and blowdowns are part of the forest life. “Fire is an integral part of the pine forest. Jack pine requires a fire to regenerate itself,” says Don Johnson, acting state fire supervisor for Michigan’s DNR.

How forest managers prepare for and respond to fires comes down to one thing: “It’s location, location, location – what kind of resources are at risk,” says Kris Reichenbach with the Superior National Forest. “Are there human dwellings, endangered species, special habitats or waterways?”

Who Foots the Bill?

All disasters leave behind at least one thing – a huge bill for repairs and restorations.

Michigan’s Duck Lake Fire cost the state about $3.5 million, including reimbursements to Minnesota and Wisconsin for aid, says Don Johnson. The 230 wildland firefighters used 27 engines, 13 bulldozers, two Minnesota DNR air tankers, four Michigan Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopters and one Skycrane helitanker.

Duluth estimates $20 million to cover infrastructure damage, labor and equipment and nearly $15 million to clear debris, sediment and do restoration on streams, part of what the mayor calls the city’s “green infrastructure.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency will not aid repair of the natural waterways. State aids are being sought.

The mayor sees as short-sighted FEMA’s policy of putting things back as they were. The goal is better systems, he says. “Personally I don’t want to build infrastructure that isn’t going to stand up to the next big storm.”

Private groups, like the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, also are responding, says foundation President Holly Sampson. The foundation got a $500,000 grant to help non-profit organizations and families for needs unmet by other flood funding.

Wawa Mayor Linda Nowicki doesn’t know how the town of 2,800 can afford infrastructure repairs. The flood hit roads and bridges hard – five major road washouts and three bridges damaged. The Trans Canada Highway was repaired by provincial and federal funds, but Wawa’s request to the Ontario Disaster Relief program for the others did not get full funding. “We submitted … $10 million worth of expenses, that they carved down to $3.5 million,” says Linda. “We’re really behind the eight ball here.”

In Thunder Bay, where the May flood damaged 1,000 or more homes, some 600 requests were made to the Thunder Bay & Area Disaster Relief Fund. The provincial government will match two-for-one all private money raised for Wawa and Thunder Bay.

Damaged perception, as well as damaged property, is a problem when the region depends on tourism income.

In the case of Michigan’s Duck Lake Fire, major natural attractions like Tahquameon Falls were not affected, says Jomay Bomber, director of the Newberry Chamber of Commerce. Access to Crisp Point Lighthouse and some campgrounds reopened during the summer, when a few visitors came to visit the burned acreage. “People actually were wanting to go up and see it,” Jomay says.

The first weekends after the Duluth flood made national news, the local hospitality industry lost about $3 million in sales as guests cancelled hotel and restaurant reservations. Visit Duluth, the city’s destination marketing organization, created a “Duluth is Open for You” campaign. “I’d estimate $5 to $6 million in lost business before we came back stronger than ever,” says Visit Duluth CEO and President Terry Mattson, who earned a 2012 Vision Award for Leadership from Meetings: Minnesota’s Hospitality Journal for the project. The city’s tourism tax collections rose by 5 percent in July 2012 over the same month in 2011.

And what of private costs? The 2012 disasters have flooded basements, burned down homes, swallowed cars in sinkholes and destroyed or damaged businesses.

The U.S. national flood insurance program estimates the average flood claim at $30,000 – if homeowners even have such insurance, reports the floodsmart.gov website.

In Duluth, the city estimates private and commercial losses of $21 million from the flood. Some 1,700 homes in St. Louis and Carlton counties were affected.

Residents were disappointed when FEMA denied private property aid and the governor’s appeal. “Nothing short of a travesty,” Mayor Ness described it. “Many of the residents that were directly affected have no flood insurance. They’re low income. They don’t have the means to go out and get a private loan.”

Grandma’s Restaurant near Miller Hill Mall (not the original in Canal Park) was not insured against its $300,000 in losses. Happily, the company had reserve appliances from restaurant closings and invested in restoring the location. Employees benefited, too. The company hired them to help with the cleanup so they continued to be paid until the restaurant reopened less than two months later. “We told all of our staff that if they wanted to work, we’d pay them,” says Tony Boen, a regional manager for the company.

Insuring against fire is easier than for floods, but costs still may be prohibitive. The Duck Lake wildfires destroyed 47 cabins and homes, 23 garages, 38 sheds and 26 campers. Seven cottages at Pike Lake Lodge burned, as did the Rainbow Lodge and its store and three rustic state campgrounds. Many property owners had no insurance.

No lives were lost in Wawa’s October flood, but two properties outside of town – Jim and Deb Sanders’ home and the Northern Lights Motel – suffered major damage, and some cars at the local dealership fell into sinkholes. Insurance will cover structural damage, but may not cover repair of the sinkholes and trenches.

Counting on Neighbors

While the weather and nature are occasionally uncertain around the Big Lake, one thing emerges as a rock-solid constant. Every time the challenge to help each other arises, our communities have responded full force.

In Newberry, Mary Archambeau and volunteers at Link quickly organized the center into a place for firefighters to arrive and for the evacuees to regain their composure before finding overnight lodgings.

Firefighters from outside the area recognized Mary from her help during the 2007 Sleeper Lake Fire. “You didn’t have to start a fire to get us to come back,” they joked. They needed food, boot dryers, T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, underarm deodorant, handwarmers, sunblock and a place to crash between shifts. All was provided.

Anxious evacuees whose homes and cabins were in danger needed other things – ways to contact family, information and someone to listen. Many were losing seasonal camps that had been in the family for 60 years or more. Some were full-time residents. “There was no sleeping going to be had, they were going to talk,” says Mary. “They needed to talk it out, to tell their stories. They were talking until 2 or 3 in the morning.”

As many as 300 people a day stayed in the center.

Soon phones started to ring. “Mary … are you going to need food? Just call.” Mary jotted down all offers of food and service in her special book. Local stores donated food. The local Pepsi distributor donated bottled water. Families brought food made for graduation celebrations.

“People from the Sault, people from Escanaba, the Sault Tribe brought truckloads of stuff,” Mary remembers. “All they needed was a place to bring it.”

A sewing group brought handmade quilts for every evacuee. A local teen, Chris Wendt, set up a website. “He was a godsend,” says Mary. “He put our computer up and got a blog going on that let everybody know our needs.”

Some evacuees occupied their time by cleaning and cooking. Then word of the fire spread.

“People from Florida were calling me and sending me stuff. From Ohio, Green Bay, all the states … random, nice people,” says Mary. “When the world sees that you need help, they’re there. This is a great country.”

After the flames subsided, professionals came to clear land. Donations helped to pay for temporary trailers for residents burned out of homes. When evacuees were allowed into the burn zone, which resembled a bombed-out area, Mary and other volunteers offered to go with them.

Mary went out with Harry Huntoon, who has a cabin near Duck Lake and who plays Santa Claus in his town. He was told the cabin had burned, then that it had not. He didn’t know what to expect. Although Harry had been coming to the area for more than 30 years, the ruins of the forest made it hard for him and Mary to find the right road.

“It was just horrible,” Mary says. Finally, they found the cabin. It was spared.

“I have a picture of him kissing his house. That tugged at my heart,” says Mary. “I’m really glad I was with him.”

---

At Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth, armed police accompanied Peter and veterinarian Louise Beyea as they walked the perimeter fence. It wasn’t safe until they could find the polar bear, Berlin. The electricity was off; the grounds were dark and shadowy.

Most exhibits were on high ground and the animals were not in danger. The wolves and deer migrated up the hill in their enclosures. Tigers and lions were safe and secure.

The zoo is in a natural bowl with the Kingbury Creek running through it. Not only had the creek swollen and overflowed, but a plugged culvert downstream apparently backed water up, making it into a water bowl.

“I was looking at a reflection in this huge pond,” recalls zoo CEO Sam Maida. “It was sort of a surreal moment.”

By 5 a.m., the morning light revealed the destruction. Huge boulders had been displaced, muck covered everything. About that time, the water broke free and flushed from the grounds. Peter and Louise spotted Berlin stepping into the creek. Fearing she might escape, Louise shot her with a tranquilizer dart – then ran like crazy back to the police car. Berlin gave chase, but was asleep within 20 minutes. A front-end loader move Berlin to safety.

That danger gone, the staff could search the zoo. The worst scene awaited at the barnyard, where a donkey, four goats and six sheep had drowned. An owl in the polar shores exhibit drowned, too, but two foxes and an otter survived.

“It filled up so quickly, and they just essentially were swept out,” says Keely Johnson, who handles marketing for the zoo. Only the “little spitfire,” Darla, the miniature horse, was able to swim.

Those losses were hard, says Peter. “I don’t look at our animals as pets. They are far from pets; they are peers, we work with them. It’s like losing a staff member.”

Amid the loss came heartwarming aid. Several hundred volunteers, local and from afar, came for a work weekend. In two days, they did two weeks of work, Sam says.

Both seals (Vivian, too, was caught outside) for now are at the Como Zoo in St. Paul. Berlin is on loan to a polar bear breeding program in Kansas City.

No exhibits will again be located on the bottom of zoo’s “bowl.” A gift shop and amphitheater may go there instead. The polar shores may not return, but in three years, the zoo might have a new bear territory. And it might welcome back an old resident. “If we can get a new facility in place and Berlin is still happy and healthy,” says Peter. “It’s not guaranteed, but …”

---

Jim and Deb and their pets – except for Minnie, who escaped the pillowcase – found refuge up the hill from their Ontario home. Maggie had led them to the construction site of the Michipicoten First Nation’s new store. They needed shelter, but Jim couldn’t bring himself to break a new window. They broke into an old trailer nearby.

When the blackness of night lightened into morning, they returned to the house. It was jaw-dropping. “There was a ditch 25 feet deep and a channel 45 feet wide. It looked like Noah’s flood,” says Deb. “If we had known it the night before, we probably would have panicked.”

Jim and Deb returned to the trailer – with all the pets this time. A vocal, but dry Minnie had met them at home.

A helicopter flew above them and they signaled, thinking it must be finding other survivors. They didn’t know theirs was the only home to suffer so much damage.

About half an hour later, the helicopter returned, and two surveyors with the hyrdo-power company left the helicopter to ask if they were tourists surveying the damage.

“We’re wet, we’re dirty. Do we look like tourists?”

The surveyors went to parlay with the pilot, James, a local man who quickly sent them back to say that the Sanders were coming with them, now, back to Wawa.

“We have pets,” they said hesitantly.

“The pilot says whatever you’ve got, we’re taking it.”

Almost as soon as they landed, the couple was floating in another flood – an outpouring of kindness.

“The world wants to know about the bad things – the miracle was what happened once the chopper stopped,” Deb says, then pauses. “I’m going to cry. Every time I talk about it … I’m going to cry.”

When they disembarked, Blair Mills, the owner of Wilderness Helicopters, hugged them and handed them keys. “Here’s a vehicle; you have to find some place to be.”

Word flows quicker than water in a small town. Soon an offer of a place to stay came from John and Lorna Chiupka. In February, they will leave the Chiupka’s to move into their new house. The down payment came from donations generated when Allan Bjornaa, a local fisherman, posted their need online. Students at Michipicoten High School, where Deb works, raised $7,000. Jim, a retired chiropractor, is also a potter. A donation of $100 came to them with a note: “Jim, keep potting.”

“I don’t know where it came from,” Deb muses. “Our little town … many people are out of work.”

And yet the money has come in – along with offers of furniture and appliances. Some of the students made dreamcatchers, to keep away nightmares. They work.

“The night of the flood was horrible, I have very few memories of it,” says Deb. “It was dark, it was scary, it was noisy. We got the animals out and we were safe.”

But other memories – good ones – will live with Deb and Jim forever. “A small town is the place where people come together. For people in big cities, I feel very badly for them. … We’ve never felt alone, ever. We’re part of a huge family.”