COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Mother Nature provided her own form of March Madness on Wednesday as high winds with gusts over 60 miles an hour at some locations swept through Michigan leaving hundreds of thousands of Consumer Energy customers without power.
The strong winds also knocked down trees and power lines. Some structural damage was reported. If you are still without power, you could be facing a dark and cold weekend.
Crews are working around the clock and Consumers Energy has brought in crews from Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
But because of the storm’s duration and statewide impact, some customers in the worst impacted areas may not have power restored until the weekend.
As of 8:00 a.m., over 184,000 Consumers customers were affected.
That included over 2,900 customers in Branch County. Most of the Branch County outages were around Coldwater and Quincy.
A total of 1,287 customers were out in Coldwater while 1,205 customers were out in Quincy. Another 290 customers were without power in Bronson while 47 were out in Union City and 51 were without electricity in the Sherwood area.
The wind storm has prompted Governor Snyder to activate the State’s emergency center as about 650,000 homes and businesses were left without power statewide.
Yesterday’s windy conditions and resulting power outages were blamed for the cancellation of elective surgeries at Bronson Hospital, after power outages forced them to turn on their own emergency generators to keep the lights on.
The strong winds blew off a portion of the roof at the Meijer Store in Angola. The store is closed until further notice.
