Nearly one year after a fire destroyed Laurium’s Department of Public Works garage, the village continues rebuilding while struggling through a challenging winter with limited equipment and temporary facilities.
When a fire broke out at the garage in February 2025, Village Manager Ian Lewis was awakened by an emergency call in the early morning hours. The blaze started possibly due to a faulty wire harness on a dump truck that was shorted during the night. Firefighters were already working when Lewis arrived at the scene.
“However, we knew we needed to get a group together, start coming up with the plan, because the next day we were supposed to get hit with a blizzard,” Lewis said. “That did come. And we’re also lucky to have some pretty amazing locals out in their plow trucks just helping out the best they could till we could get operating.”
Over the summer, village leaders formed a recovery committee to develop plans for a new DPW garage located centrally in the village. Not far from the department’s former base of operations. The facility will be significantly larger than before.
“Where we’re actually building a 2,900 square foot larger building with a 1,200 square foot lean-to attached to the building for more storage,” Lewis said. “All of this is being covered through the insurance proceeds and no taxpayer dollars are going towards it. We did recover all our equipment. We tried some new things out.”
Laurium has contracted Moyle Construction to build the new DPW facility. The entire $3.6 million project is funded by insurance claims, and the garage will feature a full range of equipment and tools for various municipal projects.
This winter has proven particularly difficult for the department, which still operates from temporary space. Lewis said preparing for incoming storms is challenging without a permanent facility. Another factor impacting the department’s ability has been the replacement equipment. Many trucks and vehicles were found outside of the Upper Peninsula and have not been exposed to Keweenaw’s heavy snow.
“You don’t really experience a winter like here until you experience it. And so a lot of this equipment hasn’t seen the amount of snow that we get,” Lewis said. “So we knew breakdowns were going to happen. However, we didn’t know how many and how often. This year’s been a struggle. We lost two dump trucks today. Out of our four snow goes, we’ve been operating with one snow go. So operations have been slower than normal.”
Delays in receiving replacement parts for snow removal machines from Canada have further reduced the department’s capabilities.
“It’s difficult to get those parts through customs in appropriate amount time. We’re looking at 90 to 120 days out for some of the parts,” Lewis said. “So we can’t even fix some of the equipment if we wanted to just because we’re looking so far out before the parts even come here.”
Construction on the new garage has continued through winter, with walls already erected and interior work underway. Lewis expects work to accelerate in spring, with the department moving into the new facility around August.
Despite the challenges, Lewis praised the community’s understanding and support.
“But I don’t think that’s stopped anyone and anyone in our community. I think people have really understood that we’re trying our best. We’re working through some major kinks at times, but we’ll get through it and hopefully next year we’ll be ready to go,” Lewis said. “Like I said, I owe a lot to the community members, the businesses around the area and the numerous road departments that helped us out.”
