Cheboygan Dam flooding event 'far from over,' Michigan officials warn

DETROIT - The water level must drop more than 9 inches before emergency operations at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex are halted, state officials said Thursday.

"As of 8:30 a.m., 9.12 inches of water must recede before the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex Emergency Action Plan is deactivated," the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division said. "Crews are now focusing on the water that is yet to arrive."

At 8:30 a.m. Thursday, the Cheboygan River was 8.28 inches below the top of the Cheboygan Dam, which meant under the state's "Ready, Set, Go" system, nearby residents should be "set" or prepared to evacuate when ordered by officials, which is usually when the river is 1 inch or less from cresting the dam.

More than 5 billion gallons of water passed through the dam on Tuesday, and upstream lakes are just beginning to show signs of decreasing water levels, according to emergency officials.

"Progress is happening, and crews are successfully moving more water than is arriving at the dam," officials said. "Workers have faced an unprecedented amount of water, and the event is far from over."

But they estimate crews must usher through the dam an extra 32 billion gallons of water being stored in nearby lakes over the next few weeks, as well as the one billion gallons that move through it on a typical April day.

"Getting that water out through Cheboygan Dam is the only way to bring needed relief to people whose homes are flooded or blocked by washed-out roads across the watershed," officials said in a statement.

The news comes weeks after state officials activated an emergency operations center and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency due to rising water levels at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex.

At the time of Whitmer's state of emergency declaration, the water in the Cheboygan River was 18 inches below the top of the Cheboygan Dam. Officials warned residents near the waterway they would be ordered to evacuate if the water level reached an inch below the dam's top.

As the level rose, Michigan Department of Natural Resources crews added pumps to divert water around the complex. Last week, some Cheboygan residents north of the city were urged to evacuate after a levee was breached.

Last Thursday, the water level was less than 5 inches from the dam's top, but crews reactivated the turbine inside the hydroelectric dam that had been offline for years.

Michigan's Department of Natural Resources owns the Cheboygan Dam's spillway and lock structure, which uses it to control water levels on the Cheboygan River and connected upstream waterways.

Ownership of the hydroelectric equipment on-site, which was previously used to generate power from the river's flow, is in dispute in court. However, federal energy regulators say Hom Paper XI LLC is responsible for it. The equipment hasn't operated since the nearby Great Lakes Tissue Company caught fire in 2023.

On Monday, the river was 7.92 inches below the top of the dam. It was about 8.28 inches below the top as of 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, according to the Michigan State Police and State Emergency Operations Center.

_____

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 5:32 PM.