JACKSON, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Consumers Energy crews are continuing their work of bringing power back for customers Thursday evening after an overnight storm with 65 to 75-mile-per-hour winds caused damage across the state, impacting more than 181,000 total Consumers Energy customers.
As of late Thursday afternoon, crews have been able to restore power to 27,000 customers. Over 350 crews will continue to work through the night on restoration efforts.
“During and after a storm, our crews work as swiftly and safely as possible to protect the public and restore service to our customers,” said Christine Wisniewski, one of Consumers Energy’s Officers in Charge for the storm event. “We saw 65 to 75 mph wind gusts early this (Thursday) morning – in some cases meeting the range equivalent to category one hurricane winds. We also saw sustained high winds throughout the day, making safe restoration efforts even more challenging. Nothing is more important than protecting our customers, our co-workers and the communities we serve. With these high winds dying down this evening, we expect more friendly weather conditions for restoration.”
Severe winds hit west and northwest lower Michigan late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. Winds knocked down trees, limbs and over 1,800 power lines.
Consumers Energy expects a large majority of it’s customers to be restored by the end of the day tomorrow, Friday, and all customers to be restored by the end of the day Saturday.
Customers can report an outage and check the status of outage by visiting www.ConsumersEnergy.
Customers can also sign up to get outage alerts and restoration times sent to a phone, email or text message, Text ‘REG’ to 232273 or visit www.ConsumersEnergy.com/