‘The only doctors we have are emergency room doctors’
By Myles Danhausen Jr, Door County Pulse and Jake Ekdahl, Conley Media
STURGEON BAY — At the time, it seemed almost absurd. During an emergency meeting of the Sister Bay Village Board on March 16, trustee Rob Zoschke leaned back in his chair and asked bluntly: “Should we be telling resorts to close down and not accept reservations and cancel existing ones?”
In northern Door County where tourism isn’t just an industry but the only industry the question silenced the room. The county is a Midwest vacation Mecca that draws about 2.5 million visitors each year.
Here, saying no to visitors is saying no to their own economy.
Sister Bay’s board ultimately decided not to make a statement, but next day the Door County government sent a message statewide encouraging visitors not to come to the peninsula.
Door County joins a long list of vacation spots around Wisconsin and the country that are asking visitors and part-time residents to stay away until the coronavirus crisis subsides.
“We were looking for the state or federal government to do something,” said Dave Lienau, chairman of the Door County Board and Sister Bay village president. “We were looking for something we could do to try to prevent the spread and at least slow it down. It was a difficult thing to do.”
At least 420 second-home owners and their families have moved to the county to open cabins and summer homes months earlier than normal, according to postal counts. Some residents had a hobby of counting Illinois license plates at grocery stores and restaurants. A few residents implored county leaders to literally raise the drawbridge in Sturgeon Bay, which would cut off Wisconsin’s “thumb” from the rest of the state.
Nelson not expecting annual trip to UP
Memorial Day usually involves a trip up north for Waukesha County Supervisor Larry Nelson and his wife Dawn Borowski. They’ve been making an annual trip to visit a friend in Ontonagon, a village of about 1,500 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, for 15 years. The trip is usually followed by an anniversary celebration in Bayfield, where Nelson is particularly fond of a local restaurant specialty: whitefish liver.
Nelson and Borowski have a reservation for May, but they don’t see it happening this year. “There would have to be a dramatic change in what’s going on in Wisconsin and nationwide, for us to do that,” Nelson said.
If they did make the trip, though, and they turned on the radio while in Ontonagon, they might hear the voice of Jan Tucker, an 84-year-old journalist with more than five decades of experience in the business.
Tucker’s been covering her area’s reaction to COVID-19, and its reluctance to take in outsiders during the pandemic, for a while now. “That’s the big story, that’s the story actually,” she said.
Tucker said a main concern in her area is the local health sector’s ability to handle cases. “The only doctors we have are emergency room doctors,” she said.
Bayfield County Health Director Sara Wartman said her county issued a travel advisory for much the same reason. “We don’t have a hospital in our county (and) the hospitals that are nearest to us have limited capacity,” she said. Ashland, Vilas, Sawyer and Menominee Counties have also issued travel advisories.
In Door County, the only emergency room is at the Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay That’s about an hour’s drive from the tip of the peninsula.