DETROIT – It’s the end of the year and what a year it has been!
It has somehow been the shortest and longest year of our lives. Remember when that airplane lost a door mid-flight? Remember when a freighter knocked out an entire bridge in Baltimore? Both those stories were this year.
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Back home, we also had some big stories. We’re looking back at the year and the most popular stories we’ve shared.
#10 -- Bless You Boys
One of the oldest, longest-running professional sports teams in the country had one of its best years in a very very long time. Not many people thought much of the Detroit Tigers when the season started, but they ended 2024 as one of the hottest teams in baseball.
The Tigers were dead until they weren’t.
After several consecutive wins, the Tigers snagged a spot in the playoffs for the first time in 10 years. They became the second team in league history to make the playoffs after being eight or more games below .500.
Looking ahead to next season, things seem good for the Tigers! They just signed former Yankees infielder Gleyber Torres and signed Alex Cobb earlier this month.
Next season is one to pay attention to.
#9 -- What’s with all the spiders?
This autumn, people across Metro Detroit started seeing an increase in spiders and webs.
It wasn’t some viral marketing for Sony’s Spider-Man films that don’t have Spider-Man for some reason (of which there were three released this year), nor was spider populations booming. It was just spider season!
Spiders are most visible in late summer and early fall when males come out to mate.
Most spiders’ breeding seasons coincide with the transition from summer to fall. If you see more spiders than usual around your home during these months, chances are they’re mature males wandering far and wide in search of a mate.
They’re busy trying to date, which means they’re probably too busy to crawl into your bed. That’s good news!
#8 -- Northern Lights
Nearly every month this year, Michiganders have had a chance to see the Northern Lights. It was the most active our night skies have been in decades. Why is that?
There have been several geomagnetic storms that happened to create the correct conditions for the Northern Lights to be visible here. The bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere.
That sounds more dangerous than it is. A geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding Earth. These storms result from solar wind variations that produce major changes in the currents, plasmas, and fields in Earth’s magnetosphere.
These conditions resulted in the Northern Lights being visible in places it typically isn’t -- including Metro Detroit!
#7 -- Store closures, store openings
All things change. Like the superblooms that follow forest fires or devastating rains, the end can also be a beginning. T.S. Eliot wrote, “Time the destroyer is time the preserver.”
Metro Detroit saw its fair share of stores and restaurants closings this year and an equal amount of new shops taking their place. From the closures of Sherman’s Dair Bar, American Freight’s 15 Michigan locations and Pizza Cat Max to the newest Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken or Sheetz locations opening up, to even larger-scale projects such as the Gordie Howe Bridge or Detroit’s latest skyscraper -- readers cared about these changes in their communities.
#6 -- Green Day’s Dookie drone
Green Day was rushed off stage during a concert at Comerica Park in September.
Shortly after their set started, the band was rushed off stage and a “show paused” message was shared on video screens. After about seven minutes, the band returned and resumed the show.
Detroit police said someone was flying a drone over Comerica Park and the band was removed from the stage due to security concerns.
#5 -- Macomb County warehouse explosions
In March, a Clinton Township business caught fire, caused several explosions and killed a teenager with flying debris.
The building was illegally storing large quantities of vape supplies when it caught fire. Thousands of containers of combustible gas that were stored in the building caused continuous explosions.
Turner Saler, a 19-year-old from Clinton Township, was nearly a quarter of a mile away from the building when he was killed by a falling canister. Because of that, Noor Kestou, the owner of the business, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Kestou was arrested at JFK International Airport with a one-way ticket to China. His court dates keep getting pushed back until the cleanup is completed so authorities can know exactly what was stored in the business.
#4 -- Lucky lottery
It’s been a big year for the lottery. In January, a $842 million Powerball ticket was sold in Michigan. Nearly a year later, it remains one of the largest jackpots won in U.S. Lottery history.
The Genesee County party store that sold the ticket received a $50,000 commission from the Michigan Lottery.
Just a few months later, a $1 million Powerball ticket was sold in Michigan. Last month, an Oakland County woman said she plans to quit her job after winning $2 million on a scratch-off ticket.
Michigan is the 10th most populated state in the country, so it makes sense that we’ve seen our share of lottery winners. Who is to say a Michigander might not win the latest jackpot?
#3 -- A return to bottle return reform
Michigan lawmakers are again looking to reform the state’s bottle return laws.
The Michigan Bottle Deposit Law (or Bottle Bill) was initiated in 1976. Currently, bottle deposits are only required on beverage containers for soft drinks, soda water, carbonated natural or mineral water, or other nonalcoholic carbonated drink; beer, ale, or other malt drink; or a mixed wine drink or mixed spirit drinks.
Lawmakers have proposed changes that they want voters to decide on.
One of the changes includes requiring retailers who accept bottle returns to accept all products, even if they don’t sell that specific product. It would also expand the deposit to include all beverage containers one gallon or less, including water bottles, but with several exceptions including milk and infant formulas.
#2 -- The sun was eaten but only briefly
The Northern Lights weren’t the only astral phenomena this year people cared about.
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse crossed North America and Metro Detroit got a nearly perfect seat for the path of totality.
The only place in Michigan located within the path of totality was Luna Pier in Monroe County.
Places in the path of totality saw the sky become dark, as if it were dawn or dusk. Depending on their location, people who experienced a partial solar eclipse will see the sky appear slightly darker than it was before. Here in Detroit, we were close enough to the path of totality that the street lights turned on. It was 2 p.m.
Bryan Schuerman was one of the lucky ones who was able to witness the eclipse from the sky. You can read about his experience here.
#1 -- Lions. It’s Lions. Clearly, it was the Lions. Duh.
This year was bookended by huge Lions enthusiasm. 2024 opened with us drinking the Kool-Aid and the year is ending with us going All In (as if we weren’t before).
It’s not even close. Readers spent more than a million minutes reading Detroit Lions stories on ClickOnDetroit this year. That’s nearly two years.
From Kelly Stafford’s message to Detroit after the Lions defeated Matthew Stafford and the Rams at the beginning of the year to Terrion Arnold’s first experience with snow to Dan Campbell’s response to trade news -- the Detroit Lions are something people are passionately following.
The team has brought an energy to Michigan that the area hasn’t seen in years. You’d be hard-pressed to find any event in the state that doesn’t have a crowd chant Jared Goff at some point.
As we head into the playoffs, it seems likely that the Lions will continue to be a huge talker in 2025.
