BRANCH COUNTY, MI (WTVB) – City of Coldwater firefighters and city police were busy Wednesday night running calls for trees and wires down.
The calls started to come in at about 3:00 p.m. and they eventually inundated Branch County 9-1-1 dispatchers.
There were nearly two dozen calls for downed wires and about 30 calls for downed trees in the road between 3:00 p.m. and midnight.
Heavy rain along with freezing rain coated trees and wires as temperatures hovered around the freezing mark.
There were reports of ice accumulations of between a half inch and three quarters of a inch in areas to the north of Branch County.
The National Weather Service initially had Branch and Hillsdale Counties under a Winter Weather Advisory until 4:00 p.m. but it was extended until 10:00 p.m. as conditions worsened.
The two counties were place until a Ice Storm Warning at 7:00 p.m. as earlier forecasts that the precipitation would be mostly rain turned out to be inaccurate.
Because of the weather, schools across Branch County were shut down for Thursday.
The Michigan State University Extension Service weather station at the Bloom Dairy Farm measured over an inch of rain in a eight hour period between 1:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m..
Heavy rain was reported in Steuben County. One National Weather Service observer reported almost two-and-a-half inches of rain near Silver Lake.
Authorities are asking resident to assume all down wires are live and leave them alone. If they are arcing, stay away and call 911.
Comments