DIGGING OUT–county gets hit by record-setting March snowstorm
by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor
Old Man winter threw everything but the kitchen sink at northern Michigan residents over the weekend. There was snow, rain, sleet, gale force winds and ice.
After what happened at the end of March 2025 with the two-day ice storm, the people of Presque Isle County were counting their blessings that the power was still on when the sun came up Sunday.
“I think about how fortunate we are,” said Presque Isle County emergency manager Tim Pritchard, handling his first, major winter event. “The freezing rain/ice that was forecast for Presque Isle County never materialized and that made a big difference for all of us. This storm is definitely something we haven’t seen in many years.”
There was plenty of snow.
“We had about 27 inches of snow in Rogers City and to the north and 18 south of Rogers,” said Presque Isle County Road Commission superintendent/manager Dave Kowalski.
That brings the total for the season up to 130 inches and into 12th place on the all-time list, overtaking the 1968-1969 season. It’s less than five inches from the top 10 since records started to be kept in 1956. The last storm to bring this much snow in a short period of time was back-to-back storms in mid-April 2018 when 38 inches was tallied.
It was not until 2 p.m. Tuesday that every road that had someone living on it had a path out, and in some cases, it was not much. Homebound residents cheered or waved in appreciation as if being rescued from a remote island.
The clogged roads and city sidewalks are big reasons schools and businesses were closed at the start of the week.
“The amount of snowdrifts and piles across the county are surreal,” said Pritchard. “Digging out has been a monumental job.”
Kowalski is estimating the cost of the cleanup to be around $150,000. “It might even be light,” he said. “The crew worked a lot of hours. We have an in-house number that we don’t like to see them work 14 hours and never 16. There were several 14-hour days.”
“Overall, with as much snow as we received, we did not have many injuries, but we are still getting a load of 911 calls for people stranded in their houses and their roads still not open,” said Presque Isle County sheriff Joe Brewbaker, Tuesday morning. “We are reminding people to go easy with shoveling take breaks because with the roads still being worked on the ambulances and emergency services are having a hard time getting to calls.”
Rogers City mayor Scott McLennan commended the efforts of the city’s department of public works.
“This crew has gone way above and beyond to open up our streets along with removing large piles of snow,” said McLennan. “The crew started early and worked late into the evening while attempting to keep up. We all owe a debt of gratitude to a great group of men.”
“I’m incredibly proud of how hard everyone across the county has worked and continues to work to keep things moving and get life back to normal,” Pritchard added.
“It will take some time because of the amount of snow, but we’re making steady progress together.”
