Ann Arbor’s emergency sirens went off in the wee hours, Wednesday morning. On and on they went. Even people who’d managed to sleep through the raging thunderstorm woke up for the sirens. When at last the sirens stopped, some of us warm in our beds were giving thought to closing our eyes again and going back to sleep.
As if the emergency folks knew that would happen, they set off the sirens a second time. All over town, people muttered, “Okay, okay, I’m up already!” and turned to their phones and radios and TVs. Yikes! Tornado warning. Not watch. Warning. Go to the basement.
We stayed down there, sleepy-eyed and draped in blankets, through the time designated by the weather authorities. Then, after a cursory check of the house, we went back to bed and back to sleep. Everything looked normal around here the next day, but we started getting phone calls from family. Were we all right? The house? Yard? Neighborhood? All good here.
Not so, elsewhere, family told us. A tornado had, in fact, touched down in Ann Arbor. Two ice rinks were hit: the one at Vets Park lost a side wall and Yost Ice Arena, where the university’s hockey team plays, lost part of its roof. A building downtown lost its entire roof. Various other structures sustained damage, but the big deal was tree damage.
The storm didn’t just break trees, it knocked them over by the roots and in multiples. One lovely tree-lined road in town had to be closed for some time, as trees on both sides had fallen into the road. A cemetery on the side of town most affected lost twenty-some trees, and one poor householder lost eight, which was all the trees he had.
And while all this is sad for Tree Town, it isn’t tragic. No one died. I haven’t heard of any injuries. The sirens did their job. The timing of their use was interesting, though. As recently as last month, the city had floated the idea of retiring the sirens. They need some expensive maintenance, a cost the city questioned. After all, budgets are tight and everyone has a mobile phone now, right? So the sirens are superfluous?
The town solicited people’s opinions on the matter. Residents said the sirens are still useful, and the city decided to keep them, although that decision had not yet been announced when the sirens went off Wednesday morning. Twice. And got us all up and seeking shelter, praise be to God.
One of the photographs of further damage at Vets Park showed a whole pile of wheelie bins stacked up where they’d come to rest in a section of fencing. It brought to mind another fierce storm that hit town years ago. It happened on an Easter Sunday and centered about one street east of my parents’ house, where we’d just enjoyed dinner.
Although we’d been watching the storm with interest, we retired to the basement when the noise of it got to be train-like. We came back upstairs to find their house undamaged. But the end house one street east, which had been nestled in trees, no longer had a tree standing. A utility pole lay in the street in front of Mom and Dad’s. Equally dramatic, there was garbage everywhere.
The day for garbage pickup in that neighborhood was Monday. Neighbors away for the holiday weekend had put their cans out early, and driven off. Through my parent’s picture window, we saw them as they came home to find garbage in their shrubbery and gardens and fences. Worse, they clearly recognized their own trash in neighbors’ yards. One after another, returnees hustled down the block in search of their garbage cans and started filling them again.
None of the writeups of that storm mentioned the flying-trash aspect of it. At least the errant wheelie bins at Vets Park got their picture taken.
Trees are starting to bloom around town. Pears are out in all their glory. Star magnolias are out, with grandiflora not far behind. Redbuds and dogwood are getting started, although it’s not clear one of the dogwoods out front is going to make it this year. It’s in rough shape.
My sister Carol reports repeated sightings of a fox vixen near her house, followed by the appearance of the whole fox family. Carol even got to see the kits nursing. Also, after the fox family retired to their den in the sandy hillside, a small black bear showed up in Carol’s front yard. This is not the first bear she and her husband have hosted, but they’re still a surprise.
17 April 2026