Winter storm packs a wallop, knocks out power again in RC
by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor
The biggest storm of the 2015-16 season brought gale force winds, nearly a foot of snow and another power outage in Rogers City. It’s the second outage in less than a week in the Nautical City as strong winds shut the power down on Christmas Eve.
The latest happened as many were starting their Tuesday morning. Lights, televisions and coffeemakers went out at 8:22 a.m.
“There was an equipment problem at our Port Calcite substation,” said Consumers Energy spokeswoman Debra Dodd. She did not know how many customers were affected, but it certainly was citywide. It was up and running again at 12:07 p.m. as soon as the power was restored, there was in influx of private plow trucks inundating local gas stations.
Many businesses and local government offices were shut down because of the outage and stayed closed, including the Presque Isle County Courthouse, Rogers City City Hall and the Presque Isle District Library.
If the outage did not stop folks, 10 to 16 inches of snow in driveways did. A coating of ice below the snow made it difficult for some to get out.
The Presque Isle County Road Commission had trucks out as early as 4 a.m. By 5:30 a.m., all the crews were out.
“We ended up with some build up on the state highway system because of the warm road conditions, then it was a warm snow that built up on the roads,” said Jerry Smigelski, road commission superintendent/manager. “We ended up having to use the motor grader to peel some of that off to salt it. That took a little bit longer.”
Crews got to the secondary roads into the early afternoon hours and worked some overtime to get all the roads opened up again.
Smigelski said there were drifts of 2- to 3-feet in places. He drove from Posen to Rogers City to get to work and thought Rogers City had a little more snow.
“A couple of guys that came in from the Hawks area said they had about 12 inches of snow on the roadways,” said Smigelski.
Being that it was the first big storm, Smigelski wanted to remind motorist to allow some extra space on the road for plows. Additionally, there are laws that govern snow removal and it is against the law
“It makes it more difficult to remove and is unsafe,” said Smigelski. “If you are driving, people forget to turn on their headlights. That is one of the best things you can do.”