More than 70,000 Without Electricity in Grand Rapids and West Michigan
As of noon today, more than 285,000 Consumers Energy customers statewide were without power caused by a snow and ice storm over the weekend.
That includes nearly 70,000 in Grand Rapids and West Michigan, according to the Jackson, Mich.-based utility.
Outage totals as of 4 a.m. today included: Kent County (18,488); Ottawa County (1,418); Allegan County (4,867); Barry County (17,636); Eaton County (14,615); Ionia County (5,671); Kalamazoo County (5,690); and Montcalm County (1,714).
With cold temperatures below freezing and increased winds possible in the days to come, there is risk of more trouble ahead.
Consumers Energy describes the progress made so far:
“The calmer weather overnight has allowed us to progress in making more areas safe and restoring power,” said Mary Palkovich, the utility’s vice president of energy delivery. “We expect to have additional utility workers on the system during Monday to supplement our efforts. We’re working around the clock to get the lights back on.”
More than 1,000 utility workers from as far as Kansas are headed to Michigan to assist with power restoration after the utility’s worst ice storm in more than 10 years, she said. There are more than 2,100 Consumers Energy and contract workers working on electricity-restoration efforts.
The map below shows outages at 1 p.m. today (Dec. 23).
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