Photo by Dawn Kruse Water floods Marywood Drive in Alpena. The flooding has impacted many roads in the area and forced some local schools to cancel bus routes.

ALPENA — School bus routes across Northeast Michigan are being affected by flooding and collapsed roads caused by heavy rainfall and melting snow.

Alpena Public Schools Superintendent Dave Rabbideau and Alcona Community Schools Superintendent Dan O’Connor said that bus routes have been altered due to blocked off and collapsed roads and flooding.

Both school districts have not had any issues with flooding at their facilities, but O’Connor said that one roof vent had a leak.

“Nothing that our maintenance team can’t manage,” he said.

O’Connor started managing the flooding situation on Sunday with the help of the Alcona County Road Commission and Emergency Management. After driving the roads Sunday evening, the decision was made to operate on a 90 minute delay on Monday.

“We did a delayed start to check out roads in the daylight,” O’Connor said.

He said two or three buses had to be rerouted on Monday, but school was able to proceed as usual after the delay.

There are still some issues with flooding but luckily the rain was not as heavy Monday night as anticipated, O’Connor said. The softball team was able to play on Monday afternoon.

There are group stops set up to help buses avoid flooded roads and make sure students still have access to transportation.

“We’re monitoring the situation,” O’Connor said.

Rabbideau said that they have had to reroute a fair number of their buses.

“There’s a fair amount of intersections and roads across the county we’ve had to find alternate routes,” he said.

Alternate pick up locations have been arranged for some routes and parents are coordinating to drive kids to school.

The most affected bus routes are those on Golf Course Road and surrounding streets. Two bus routes were shut down on Tuesday.

“We’re hopeful that we can continue to reroute and stay in session but this is yet another first,” Rabbideau said. “I was talking with all the (superintendents) in the area and we’ve never seen anything like this before.”

With more rain forecasted throughout the week, it is still up in the air whether school will need to close.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.