(WXMI) — Tuesday’s wet, heavy snow was not only hard to shovel but it was also hard on power lines, leaving many homes without electricity, and now it appears another winter storm will be arriving Friday bringing heavy snow and wind.
“Yesterday [Tuesday], winter finally arrived, and we saw it coming," says Consumers Energy. "We knew from our forecast that we were going to have this heavy, wet snow that can be so problematic on tree limbs and branches.”
This week’s winter weather in Michigan left roughly 65,000 homes and businesses without power. As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, almost half had their power restored.
By 8 p.m. Wednesday, Consumers Energy still was dealing with 336 outages throughout the state, affecting fewer than 12,500 customers.
Consumers expects those remaining customers should have power back on by Thursday morning.
Click here to access the Consumers Energy Outage Map.
Consumers tells us that most of the outages were caused by tree limbs and branches sagging or breaking with the weight of the snow, bringing down the power lines. Consumers says that in winter storms, the wind tends to last longer than summer storms, making it harder for crews to restore power.
With another winter blast expected to arrive this weekend, Greg Salisbury from Consumers Energy says they will be ready.
“These back-to-back storms are tough on the crews, but our crews are tough and we have a plan to work 16 hours on and eight hours of rest no matter how bad it gets," says Salisbury. "And we have crews staged so that we're always working 24/7. We know that having your power out is hard. It's hard because it's cold. It's hard because it's dark. And we are dedicated to repairing the damage from this storm, preparing for the next.”
Consumers warn that if you come across a downed power line stay at least 25 feet away and call 911 or Consumers Energy. Also, if you must use a generator, never operate it in an enclosed area like a garage or enclosed porch.
