Massive ice slabs have crashed through homes in northeastern Michigan’s Cheboygan County, where spring storms and melting snow have created catastrophic flooding conditions that forced residents to evacuate.
Social media posts from Wednesday revealed the devastating aftermath, with enormous ice chunks sitting inside living rooms after smashing through windows and doors. Properties throughout the area were submerged under several feet of murky floodwater.
The combination of seasonal precipitation and thawing winter snow has caused waterways to surge beyond capacity, sending torrents through Cheboygan County communities before eventually reaching Lake Huron.
According to a Facebook post from the Cheboygan County sheriff’s office last week, the flooding has been unprecedented. “Black Lake, Black River, Cheboygan River, Burt Lake, Mullett Lake, the Sturgeon River — and nearly every waterway in the county — have overflowed beyond their banks, swallowing docks, roads, yards, and in far too many cases, homes,” officials stated. “What should be familiar shorelines are now unrecognizable expanses of water.”
Weekend evacuations were ordered for residents living on Black Lake’s western shore, the sheriff’s office confirmed.
Christopher Narsesian, who documented the destruction with photos and video, described the ice formations as extraordinary. “These are ice sheets. They’re massive,” Narsesian explained. “They’re mini glaciers, if you will. They just run down everything in their path. Nothing can stop that kind of weight.”
Emergency crews from state and county agencies are working around the clock to prevent ice and debris from blocking the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex, which must remain clear to allow water passage into Lake Huron.
Patrick Bak, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Gaylord, Michigan, explained that under typical conditions, lake ice simply breaks apart and melts in place. However, wind likely pushed the Black Lake ice toward shore, he noted.
“The fact that the water was so high, the ice … had more room to travel,” Bak explained.
Similar ice movement has been observed on nearby Mullett Lake, with both bodies of water feeding into the Cheboygan River system that flows through the Cheboygan Dam.
Patrick Ertel, representing the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Incident Management Team, acknowledged the challenges. “We’ve managed a little bit of ice issues on Mullett Lake,” Ertel said.
Emergency response efforts last week included installing additional pumps and reactivating an abandoned hydroelectric facility to boost water flow through the dam. Heavy machinery was also deployed to remove water retention gates.
On April 9, a massive ice chunk severed the safety cable at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex, forcing natural resources officials to shut down access points both upstream and downstream from the facility.
“We can’t have large chunks of ice flowing down blocking up the gates,” Ertel explained. “Two marine vessels are kind of breaking up the chunks … on the Cheboygan River. The more water we can safely pass at the Cheboygan Dam, the faster we can bring relief to Mullet Lake. It’s going as fast as it can. It is purely driven by gravity.”
The smaller Alverno Dam sits between Black Lake and the Cheboygan River system.
“Ice from Black Lake is not going to make it down to the Cheboygan River. It will be held up,” Ertel noted.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has issued emergency declarations for Cheboygan and more than 30 additional Michigan counties affected by this month’s flooding and severe weather events.
Narsesian, a Cheboygan area resident who spent his childhood near Black Lake, said massive ice slabs spanning several miles continue drifting across the water. He described the ice as “smashing into homes and taking them out, just leveling them,” with some chunks reaching rooftop height.
“We’ve never seen it that high,” Narsesian said. “Typically, the ice would just come over the break walls in front of houses, like a couple of feet. People’s homes don’t typically flood. The ice just melts.”
While water levels are beginning to drop, Narsesian said conditions remain dangerous with significant ice still present.
“As long as the wind doesn’t pick up and move that around again, we should be OK,” he said. “If that ice does come back, it’s going to do more damage.”
The long-term recovery concerns Narsesian most, particularly in a tight-knit community where “it’s all friends and family” and “everybody knows everyone.”
“Most people don’t have any help — coverage,” he added. “Flood insurance was never necessary. No one’s ever seen this here. It’s a lot.”
