Monday’s first round of storms hit mid-Michigan hard from Big Rapids to Midland, leaving 52 thousand people without power statewide.
But the impact isn’t over, says Consumers Energy Media Specialist Trisha Bloembergen, with continuing high winds likely to cause further outages along the Lake Michigan shoreline into Tuesday.
“As the high winds continue to come off the lake, we are very much expecting that it may cause some outages across the lakeshore, including in Kent County.”
The weekend’s rain then freezing temperatures left power lines, tree limbs and roadways covered in ice.
Monday brought a new issue
“We have seen high winds with gusts up to 50 and 60 mph and that really is the number one impact on our power grid.”
Winds are impacting repair crews as well.
“They aren't able to fly in the bucket trucks with these high wind gusts. However, they are able to do a lot of other restoration efforts such as clearing those trees and limbs so they’re still working on restoration efforts.”
Bloembergen stresses that residents should not try to help by removing tree limbs interacting with powerlines, as any downed line should be considered dangerous.
Instead, call 9-1-1 then Consumers Energy.
“We have had hundreds of crews on our system working around the clock in 16-hour shifts to restore power for our customers. Right now, we have more than 400 crew on our system and we're looking at getting some more folks in to help out with any continued needs.”
Customers can check the status of outages at www.ConsumersEnergy.com/OutageCenter.
They can also sign up for outage alerts and restoration times sent to a phone, email or text message.
Text ‘REG' to 232273 or visit www.ConsumersEnergy.com/alerts.
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