BRANCH COUNTY, MI (WTVB) – Over 64,000 Consumers Energy customers in Michigan were without power on Wednesday morning after the Tuesday morning storms.
Initially, nearly 151,000 customers lost their power. Consumers Energy says they had crews in the field after the storm subsided in an all-hands-on-deck effort to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible.
More than 450 crews, including crews from five different states, are working round-the-clock to restore power. Consumer’s Energy says most customers can expect to have their power restored by midday Thursday.
Muskegon and Oceana Counties along the Lake Michigan shoreline were among the hardest hit areas.
The storms that went through Branch County mostly featured heavy rain, quarter inch hail and strong winds with gusts up to 50 miles an hour.
There were a few reports of wires and trees being knocked down. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Branch and St. Joseph Counties.
The power outage numbers have improved significantly since midday on Tuesday.
Just under 100 Consumers Energy customers were without power on Wednesday morning in Branch County.
After over 4,500 customers lost power in Calhoun County, the number was down to 941 on Wednesday morning.
There were over 11,000 customers out in Kalamazoo County on Tuesday. That number was down to about 1,400.
After nearly 1,500 customers were out in St. Joseph County, that number was down to 167.
The M.S.U. Extension Service weather station at the Bloom Dairy Farm measured just over a half inch of rain (0.53) between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. That location measured 81-hundreths of an inch in three hours.
That’s on top of the 68-hundreths of an inch of rain that was measured there on Sunday morning.
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