JACKSON, MI (WHTC) – Power has been restored to nearly 300,000 of the 346,000 customers as crews from Consumers Energy and contract crews work around the clock.
The weather conditions helped with restoration and it continues around the clock. Consumers Energy says the vast majority of customers should have power restored by midnight Saturday but the hardest hit areas such as Kent county may have to wait until Sunday.
Winds of up to 60 mph took down nearly 8,200 wires and broke more than 1,100 poles across Consumer Energy’s service territory. Governor Rick Snyder called Wednesday’s windstorm the “largest combined statewide event in history,” noting more than one-third of all state residents were impacted. The state’s Emergency Operations Center has been activated, but no requests from local communities for services have yet come in.
Consumers Energy Spokesman Roger Morgenstern says workers are doing all they can working 16-hour shifts and says their mobile command center in Rockford is “a large conference room on wheels” that helps coordinate repairs.
“It’s a real grind. I mean it’s very difficult work and often it’s in challenging conditions. We need to get on computers to look at some things and if we have to look at our actual electrical system we can pull up our designs.”
Falling trees knocked down about seven-thousand power lines statewide. An additional 181 crews from Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana are assiting crews in Michigan.
The public is especially reminded to keep these safety items in mind:
- Stay at least 25 feet away from downed power lines and to call 911 and Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050.
- Be alert to crews working along roads. Drivers should slow down or stop and wait for oncoming traffic to clear so they safely can go past workers on roadsides.
- Never use a generator in an attached garage, basement or near any air intakes, and never fuel a generator when it is running. Operating a generator without proper ventilation can create carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless and deadly gas. If using a generator, contact a licensed electrician to ensure that it is properly connected and make certain it is isolated from the company’s electric distribution system.
- In some cases, the mast which holds the electric service wires to a customer’s home or business may have been damaged or torn away. Crews will reconnect the wires to a home, but only a licensed electrician can repair or replace a mast or a cable.
Customers can sign up for outage alerts and restoration times by texting “REG” to 232273 or logging on to ConsumersEnergy.com/alerts. In the event of a power outage, you can reach Consumers Ed 24/7 at 1-800-477-5050 or online. Additional storm and outage alerts are available online from the Consumers Energy outage center.
