Over 175,000 Customers Without Power Following Storms

As severe storms rolled through the west Michigan area on Tuesday night, it brought along high winds, rain, and lots of lightning. It also knocked out the power to over 175,000 Consumers Energy customers. At one point over 200,000 customers were without electricity.

As of Wednesday morning, just over 177,000 Consumers Energy customers were without power. That represents about 10% of their customers.

A notice on the Consumers Energy Outage Map website says: "Crews have been deployed with more on the way. Restoration updates are likely to occur as crews assess local damage.".

Most restoration times are sometime on Wednesday for customers to get their power back on. For some areas the estimated restoration time is as late as Thursday.

It is easy to see the path of the storms by looking at the outage map. The line extends from the Lake Michigan lakeshore north to Traverse City and south to Benton Harbor. The line extends eastward towards Midland.

With area temperatures near 70, but with the humidity near 100%, many people are missing their air conditioners. The Fox 17 forecast calls for temps on Wednesday to get back up into the upper 80s with a chance of storms redeveloping this afternoon and again this evening. Fox 17 meteorologists say West Michigan is at an even greater risk for severe weather this evening than we were Tuesday night.

As of mid morning on Wednesday, here are how the numbers looked for customers without power:

• Kent County - about 43,000
• Ottawa County - about 8,500
• Muskegon County - about 7,000
• Newaygo County - about 7,000
• Allegan County - about 11,500
• Barry County - about 5,000

Consumers Energy's website has the following warning: "Strong overnight storms have caused widespread power outages across the state. Additional crews will continue to be added to those already deployed as we restore power safely and as quickly as possible. Restoration estimates may change as local damage continues be assessed throughout the day. Please prepare for hot and humid weather condition today, and watch local weather forecasts for additional storms that are anticipated to develop this evening.."