Grand Traverse County shifts road work to flood repairs after historic flooding

Grand Traverse County drivers are still feeling last week’s historic flooding, and the Road Commission has started shifting spring work to emergency repairs on Sawyer Road and Brown Bridge. The change affects commuting and access across the county, where crews are now triaging more than 100 damaged locations instead of following the normal seasonal schedule.

County officials declared a local state of emergency on April 14 because of ongoing and anticipated flooding impacts, giving emergency managers a way to coordinate public safety resources and recovery efforts. The county also asked residents to report home, property and roadway damage through its self-reporting tools and the Road Commission’s Citizen Problem Reporter system so officials could measure the scope of the storm and determine whether federal help was available.

The response has already altered travel across Grand Traverse County. At the height of the flood response, eight roads were closed, and that number had dropped to four by April 20. South Airport Road reopened at 4:30 p.m. that day. Road Commission crews have been checking every road, culvert and bridge in the county, a countywide inspection that shows how deeply the flooding disrupted the transportation network.

The severity of the storm was underscored along the Boardman/Ottaway River corridor. The City of Traverse City said the river system rose to levels rarely seen in recorded history, and a U.S. Geological Survey gage above Brown Bridge Road near Mayfield recorded 1,120 cubic feet per second on April 14. That was 92 percent higher than the previous record peak of 583 cfs set on April 14, 2014. At FishPass, water levels came within half an inch of a 500-year flood. Brown Bridge Road was closed again on April 27 because of an emergency safety issue at the bridge, and the Grand Traverse Conservation District advised against river activity upstream from that crossing.

The latest repair phase now centers on getting the roads stable before the next major storm. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy granted the permit needed for Sawyer Road work, and county officials said a repair plan for Brown Bridge had been approved. Dan Watkins, the Road Commission manager, said crews had identified more than 100 damaged locations countywide, and that scale is why staff and equipment are being pulled away from planned spring projects. Residents can still call the regional 2-1-1 hotline for recovery help while the county keeps updating closures and repair priorities.