Storm-driven lake inundates marina

In a year when rising Lake Michigan waters have become normal, the swells pushed onto the western shore of the lake by this weekend’s fierce weather surprised even seasoned observers.

“That had to be a surge of two feet off the lake,” Harbormaster Dennis Cherny said. “It was so high it was over the finger piers and walkway in the north slip.”

And the force of the water pushed up large sections of concrete decking, each weighing 80 pounds or so, that make up the dock in the main marina, he said.

“Not in my 23 years here have I seen that,” Cherny said. “You just can’t predict these surges with these strong winds. We had strong easterly winds that blew all day.”

The Lake Michigan water level is rising at a time when it normally falls and is 16 inches higher than it was a year ago, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s also 33 inches higher than the long-term November average water level.

The water is only six inches lower than the record November monthly average, the Corps reported, projecting that by the end of the year the lake level will fall only two inches.

The Corps predicts that high water levels — potentially record high water levels, are expected to persist for at least the next six months.

Cherny said that at a recent Wisconsin Marina Association meeting, officials warned that the lake levels will be as high when winter ends as they are now.

It’s not just Port that’s being hit by the strong waves and high winds, Cherny said.

“It’s all around the lake,” he said. “The Michigan side is worse than here. They get more of this than us because of the westerly winds.”

Some Michigan marinas needed to turn off the power in the electric boxes on the piers so they wouldn’t short out, something that the Port marina hasn’t had to do, he noted.

“But if we get another foot of water on a heavy surge, we may have to do it too,” Cherny said.

And while some people speculated that the high levels would push into the marina parking lots and ultimately downtown, Cherny said that won’t happen.

“We’d have to go another three or 3-1/2 feet for that,” he said.

Because the marina built extensions to its floating piers last year, allowing the piers to extend another two feet, there hasn’t been any real damage done, Cherny said.

“It’s got a long way to go,” he said. “I don’t see that happening.”

But the fact that the heavy reinforced concrete panels were pushed up by the force of the lake surprised him, Cherny said.

Fortunately, the panels weren’t damaged, he said.

“They’ve been in there 10 years. They’re hard to break,” Cherny said, noting the staff will set the panels back into their frames.

“There’s nothing you can do about this,” he said. “It’s Mother Nature. We check it every day.

“It’s something when it gets so rough you can’t even see the breakwater. And that was an easterly — now we have to wait for a nor’easter and see what happens.”