Comments on: May 31, 1998 derecho

By: Amber- Grand Rapids

Amber- Grand Rapids — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:40:39 +0000

I remember that storm VERY WELL!! I was living in Comstock Park…just a few miles away from the VERY HARD HIT Alpine/4-3 mile area. I heard the winds and thought for sure it was a tornado coming. I could see all of the powers flashes from my house on Alpine. The damage wasn’t bad where I was living at the time. I was SHOCKED when I saw Bell Tire and Keller Ford. Not to forget about the sub-division behind the old K-Mart and Chuck E Cheese. It was indeed a REAL STORM!!!

By: Larry of Hastings/Barry Co.

Larry of Hastings/Barry Co. — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:59:53 +0000

I was up in the U.P. of Michigan that weekend. On our way back home, we couldn’t believe the damage we saw.

By: Matt Northuis

Matt Northuis — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:26:19 +0000

I remember this storm by the exact date and year and hour it took place. Being a huge 12 year old meterologist fan at the time I stayed up watching TV since I was to scared/excited to sleep. I remember telling my parents I would wake them up in the storm got bad, since they believed Lake Michigan would weaken the storm. However, the power of this storm was incrediable. I was able to watch chairs flying off our deck and thinking where’s the candle and everyone get in the basement! I will never forget this storm since it truely showed God’s power! Great Job Woodtv 8 for your continous excellent coverage that has entertained me for 23 years!

By: Jack Conway

Jack Conway — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:04:06 +0000

meant to say I-69 west of Flint…

By: Jack Conway

Jack Conway — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:55:20 +0000

My wife and I had the unfortunte experience of being in our car on I-96 just west of Flint when it happened. We were in Lake Orion at my brother’s (north of Detroit in Oakland County). It’s amazing how many details I recall 11 years later. I was 27…which means I was young and stupid. I remember being upset at how hot it was for late May in the middle of the night. My brother wouldn’t turn the air on and the winds were picking up and woke me up about 5:30am or so. At that time in Lake Orion they were just heavy winds and it kept banging the blinds into the window frame…but I didn’t think it was anything extraordinary. Because I was hot and couldn’t sleep anymore because of the noise, in disgust, I left my brother a note and Jennifer and I headed north on I-75. It was dark when we left…but as dawn broke I recall seeing the tops of the clouds in the distance with a smattering of lightning…I had never seen them that high. But why should I be concerned, I thought? Up to that point, in my whole life I had driven through rain storms before. As we got into the Flint area I remember seeing police cars sitting on the tops of the highway overpasses….my wife and I said how strange that was…had never seen it. In hindsight we realized they weren’t letting cars on the highway. We were so foolish we had no idea what we were heading into. As we merged onto I-96 west of Flint to head back to GR the rain and wind picked up in great intesity. The man on the radio said if you are in Genessee county and in a car to get into a ditch immediately. The tornado siren was blaring on the radio. I remember my wife asking frantically: “Where are WE!?”. I told here I didn’t know…that I only knew the counties around West Michigan. I told her I thought Gennessee county was farther north…I was fumbling with a map looking for “Gennesse County” but we were right smack in the middle of it. At this point we literally couldn’t see 2 inches in front of our windshield. The dawn sky had darkened to black and the leaves…and the branches…the branches were everywhere flying all over the car. I recall thinking there wouldn’t be any branches left on the trees. The radio was still blaring but we no longer could listen to it as my wife was frantically crying and I was trying to mask the sheer terror that seized me. We kept inching along the highway and my only goal was to get under a freeway overpass – just so I could see something. The fear of not being able to see was overpowering. The shame I felt for putting my 26 year old wife in harm’s way was palpable too. We thought we were on or near the fringes of a tornado. We didn’t know what wsa going to happen to us. We finally got to an overpass and could finally see a little. I’ll never forgot how the trees in front of us were bending over almost parallel to the ground. The branches were still flying all over the windshield but with less rain we could use the wipers to see while under the overpass. I remember thinking we’d be safe there until it passed but then the wind began to pick up….I still recall thinking to myself, “this isn’t possible-my car’s too heavy to be moving like this!”. Inexplicably my knees began to shake uncontrollably…never happened before or sense…but I can tell you it’s the strangest feeling to have your knees literally knocking like a cartoon character. The car was heaving side to side like a group of men were see-sawing us. I was in a Nissan Maxima at the time – which was a fairly good sized 4 door sedan. Of course, my wife was literally freaking out…just when we had decided to run up into the crease of the overpass (because we thought the car was going to get flipped) the wind started to die down. Fear finally began to ebb from my mind…I noticed another car behind me at the point. I’m sure they were going through the same thing. When the wind stopped it looked like a surreal picture. I-96 was literally covered entirely with tree limbs, trees, and branches. We drove through an obstacle course from Flint to Portland weaving all over the road at about 15 miles an hour to get back home and to avoid tree branches or drive over the smaller ones. At the Portland rest area we saw a car that was completely squashed by a large tree. The owner had fortunately sought safety inside. I remember reading later that going under an overpass may not be the best place because of the vortex action of winds…but there was so much fear at the time it seemed like the best to do. To this day I tease my brother who now lives in California that if he would have just turned the air conditioner on that night we would have likely slept through it…but then I wouldn’t have this story indelibly etched into my mind with precise detail 11 years later…and probably as long as I live. My wife and I know have two little boys and when this “anniversary” comes up they like to hear our story.

By: Miami

Miami — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:45:19 +0000

Now that GM is going bankrupt even more will be leaving the state, I have a friend who works for U-Haul and he said 80-100 families are leaving the state every week. I think the federal government should just buy MI and make it a landfill or nuclear waste site.

By: Zeelander

Zeelander — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:16:20 +0000

I remember hearing the wind picking up in our big maple trees and then….Wham!!!! the straight line winds hit the house with a roar….windows rattled, pitures on the wall fell… the roar drowned out the falling pitures, nshingles ripping off the roof and the trees snapping off out side our windows…we lost the tops of 4 trees one was about 18″ in diameter…across the street the entire row of old maples were down except the few in my yard….I’m not a morning person but that woke me up!!!!

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:18:25 +0000

This was probably a once in a lifetime storm for this area. All conditions were perfect for this to happen.

By: Herb (SE Muskegon Township)

Herb (SE Muskegon Township) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:21:14 +0000

Sisres friends trailer excuse me.

By: Herb (SE Muskegon Township)

Herb (SE Muskegon Township) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:17:34 +0000

I might as well tell my story. We (parents, sister, me) lived on Mt. Garfield Road in Fruitport near Johnson Road. We just moved our double wide cedar sided house from Spring Lake. We had bought an acre, so we had to remove the trees and weeds from where we wanted the trailer and the huge garage we were going to build.

The township wanted us to pour extra cement down, and anchor in it deeper. Cost extra money! At the time we thought that was odd and uncalled for but we did it cause we had to. So all that was done.

Now on to the storms. I remember three days before the derecho we had a real good storm come into Muskegon Northward, we ended up getting I would say 80 mph winds from that, knocked our power out for a day or so. We had just got our power turned back on and Bill came on then news warning of severe weather later that night. This time thinking ahead I bottled up some water and got the scanner out to listen to the weather band.

Well I remember at the 11pm news Bill said it was coming, and so I started getting stuff ready, I put a couple chairs in the kitchen, and a blanket around it just in case. I went outside after the news and it was downright hot and humid, which seamed odd. They then issued a tornado watch, then a bit later while the storms were just about halfway across the lake they issued warnings already. I told my dad I had never seen that in my life. I had the police and fire scanner going when the storms hit the shore, and call after call started coming in. Then all of the sudden, DARK! The power went off, and there was no wind no thunder nothing.

At just that time my sister was coming home. Then chaos. The wind was so much stronger than the first storm three days earlier. Had to be over 100 mph. I was in the kitchen trying to persuade my family to come into the shelter I had built. My dad and sister watched out the front window, I asked why and they said to see where we were going. The house shook, and the wind was so loud, I thought it was a tornado. You could see the trees sticking straight out in the wind just about parallel to the ground! So much lighting and not much thunder, but the wind was so loud so I doubt we could hear thunder anyways.

The wind lasted quite a while, then it was over. I went to the garage at daylight and got the car ready. My neighbor had a tree on their house so we checked to make sure they were alright. We then drove into Fruitport down East Farr Rd, and you could see a path of trees down straight to our house. We drove into Fruitport and the damage was extensive, as we got closer to my friends house in Spring Lake, there were trees and power lines down in the road, so it was like driving down a two track.

My friend said he slept through the whole thing. Their neighbor worked for the state police and talked about all the damage reported everywhere. We drove into Grand Haven and downtown Spring Lake and couldn’t believe all the trees down and the trees down in the cometary. My sisters trailer in Country Estates was destroyed by a tree, she claims to have seen a tornado coming at her. Then we went out to Ravenna (Moorland Township) where I used to live to check out the huge transmission towers that toppled. We lived next to the same transmission towers a mile or so away at one time, and figured it would take a tornado to knock them down and would give us like a warning as to when a tornado was nearby.

I have seen some huge windstorms when I was younger make those lines swing, if it was windy I would hunt the other side of the property.

All in all we had no power for a week or so. I’ll never forget that night.