St Claire River Ice Breaking

[New Guy Rick]

Algonac Webcam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGA3v2KkY0w

Marine City Cam
Port Huron Cam...

[JohnH]

Head to Duluth Harbor today. The CG fitter Alder will be breaking ice through Duluth Harbor. They will depart their dock going to Fraser Shipyard for a tug barge. From the shipyard they will head to Southwest Terminal in Superior. Bundle up.

The G-Tug Missouri this (Friday) morning is breaking ice between the Midwest Energy Terminal where the Paul R Tregurtha (I believe) is moored to the Fraser shipyard. The tug Fraser2 also was involved in the ice work.

[SteveGuc]

A friend of mine is a retired USCG Officer and he told me that brash ice is like working in a 7-11 Slurpee. The breakers/cutters can move through it easily enough, but it's very difficult to get it two open up and sweep away with the natural currents on the river. The ice and slush mixture continues to fill in behind the breakers and makes for long hours and tough work. It also looks like conditions will keep this deal going for awhile. Hopefully they can get it flowing out into Lake St. Clair fast enough to get the water levels down and keep them there. The next problem is all of that flooded water is freezing on the land and that's not fun to get rid of if you can at all.

[Guest]

Head to Duluth Harbor today. The CG fitter Alder will be breaking ice through Duluth Harbor. They will depart their dock going to Fraser Shipyard for a tug barge. From the shipyard they will head to Southwest Terminal in Superior. Bundle up.

[thomasssmith1]

I'd like to see the icebreakers busting up fast, sheet ice, perhaps in one of the harbors. I plan on watching the marine traffic and listening to the FM radio, but I think I need to narrow down my window a bit. Where and when would I get a good shot at this?

[Larry64]

Just drive down M-29. Many docks are already damaged, some a fairly new. A couple are flat out missing. It happens every year. The force of the movement of that ice pack is just awesome. When I was a kid I remember them using dynamite on ice jams. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

[Guest]

As of 1400 the tug Michigan/barge Great Lakes are currently downbound above Willow Pt.. Funny how the ice breakers are exceeding the 12 mph speed limit trying to flush the ice downriver. Next the locals will have dock damage. Just can’t win.

I lived in that area for over 25 years and I guess my opinion is that anyone who has lived there longterm knows what happens nearly every year with flooding and the destruction of docks. Realistically, the St. Clair Flats area and the lower section of the St. Clair River is prone to flooding through the course of natural elements. The annual movement of ice down the river will often tear docks up whether it causes flooding or not. I can tell you from experience the locals are never happy one way or the other.

When information wasn't as readily available as it is today in the form of old news stories and flood maps it was very easy for someone new to the area to buy a home that was susceptible to flooding. For example, I lived there through the 1984 ice jam and flooding and was surprised around 5 or 6 years later when I was talking to a fellow employee that was in the process of buying a home on one of the canals. This individual had lived in Novi for her entire life up to that point. I asked her if she knew about the 1984 flood and the chances of flooding on annual basis in the Algonac area. Her reply was that she had no idea of this risk and although the relator and seller of the home did their best to downplay the issue she did not buy the home.

[Guest]

As of 1400 the tug Michigan/barge Great Lakes are currently downbound above Willow Pt.. Funny how the ice breakers are exceeding the 12 mph speed limit trying to flush the ice downriver. Next the locals will have dock damage. Just can’t win.