BRANCH COUNTY, MI (WTVB) – Consumer Energy crews along with utility crews from outside of the area are making steady progress in restoring power in lower Michigan following Wednesday afternoon’s severe storms that were part of the remnants from Tropical Storm Christobal.
But restoration times for some customers in hard hit areas of Branch and Calhoun Counties have now stretched into Saturday morning.
Some Bronson and Burr Oak area residents initially lost their power from a Tuesday night storm.
As of 5:30 a.m. Friday morning, there were 6,335 Branch County customers who are still without power. Over 26,000 customers in Calhoun County were still out. The number of outages in Hillsdale County has been reduced to 892 customers while 699 customers were out in St. Joseph County.
Over 96,000 customers system wide were without power on Friday morning after over 235,000 lost power at the height of the storms.
Many of the remaining customers will be restored by the end of Friday. Work in areas with heavier damage, including customers in Branch, Calhoun, Kent, Jackson and Saginaw counties, will continue into the weekend.
Wednesday’s storms featured 70 mile per hour winds which toppled trees along with nearly 5,000 electric wires and broke more than 300 poles.
