ROGERS CITY — Presque Isle County is taking it day by day as they clean up the ice storm damage left behind.
At last report, over 65 hundred people are still without power and many are still disconnected from the internet. Presque Isle County Emergency Coordinator told 9&10 news they are continuing to do welfare checks on residents.
“Hello to the world. Well, we’re still here,” says David Lafferty, Rogers City resident.
The Rogers City area was hit hard by the ice storm nearly a week ago, and many are just now realizing how extensive the damage is.
“It’s hard to even know. I go on the 9&10 News website all the time to find out what was going on around the area,” Rogers City resident Kevin Freel said. “With no service, no connections. You are totally clueless about what’s going on.”
Neighbors Kevin Freel and David Lafferty have been checking on others in their neighborhood, knocking on doors, and opening up their home for others to get warm.
“We’ve just been helping each other out. I’ve been helping all the neighbors who are in their 70s or 80, making sure that they’ve come to my house, sat in my bedroom to warm up, giving them, I had got to have a gas stove, explains Lafferty, “So I was able to cook food and provide it to some of my neighbors. So, I’m making runs to Alpena for gas. Once they opened up, I made two runs in one day to get gas cans for different people.”
“General Grant” was certified as the largest silver maple tree in Presque Isle County in 2019. During the ice storm, the five-ton tree fell. This is some of the worst ice storm damage we have seen. A neighbor said the tree didn’t just fall all at once, but it fell piece by piece, landing on the roof and the patio awning.
“I told my wife, we watched the neighbors over here, all day and, on Monday, come down,” Freel said. “I told her, I said, ‘Be ready,’ because we had a couple of overhangs in the house, real bad.”
“I came out and I was talking to my neighbor Val, and we were one. You can just hear the cracks, and they sounded like they’re exploding,” says Lafferty, “You know, it was very loud because you didn’t know whose tree was going to go. I was worrying about Kevin. Son of god. Kevin’s going to lose his. And then I walked up here after realizing. I remember the night before that I heard that loud bang. And I went up and I just couldn’t believe it.”
The woman who lives here tells us she is safe and has no injuries, a big blessing as the Rogers City community prepares for more long days ahead.
“I think it was really, helpful of them. And everyone was, you know, just helping out. I think it’s really going to be a community effort to fix this,” Paxton Mertz said.