Favorable Weather, Increased Crews Will Help with Restoration Effort Following Severe Winds

Jackson, Mich. Sunday, December 12, 2021

Consumers Energy restoration crews have made significant progress this morning to restore power to more than 95,000 customers following a severe storm featuring high winds over 55 miles per hour that swept quickly through Michigan Saturday morning, causing damage and knocking out power to over 150,000 customers.

“We understand how disruptive and frustrating it is to be without power and thank our customers for their patience as our crews work around the clock to restore power,” said Melissa Gleespen, one of Consumers Energy’s Officers in Charge for the storm event. “We expect the majority of customers to be restored by the end of the day Monday.”

The company has staged 343 crews, including 50 mutual assistance crews, storm trailers and mobile command centers, throughout the central portion of our service territory.

Severe weather swept through Michigan knocking out power along the lakeshore, moving across mid and southern Michigan yesterday morning. The hardest hit areas in Michigan include: Midland, Flint, Carson City, Grand Rapids, Greenville, Alma and Ionia. Winds have knocked down trees, limbs, broken 192 poles and damaged over 2,200 power lines.

Customers can report an outage and check the status of outage by visiting www.ConsumersEnergy.com/OutageCenter. 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/alerts.

Gleespen urged people to pay attention and be mindful of downed power lines. If you see one, stay at least 25 feet away from downed power lines, keep children or pets away, and report the issue by calling 9-1-1 and Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050. Someone will respond as quickly as possible to secure the scene. Consumers Energy asks the public to keep a safe distance from crews due to health precautions and to allow them to do their work.

Consumers Energy also asks the public to keep important safety tips in mind:

Be alert to crews working along roads. Drivers should slow down or stop and wait for oncoming traffic to clear so they safely can go past workers on roadsides.
Call 2-1-1 if you are looking for help connecting to resources that offer assistance in your community. 2-1-1 is a free statewide service.
Never use a generator in an attached garage, basement, enclosed patio or near any air intakes. Doing so could cause a generator to produce hazardous levels of carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless and deadly gas. Read more guidance on safe generator use here.
Consumers Energy will trim or remove trees interfering with electric restoration activities. Once safe to do so, clean-up of debris from tree trimming or removal during a storm emergency is the responsibility of individual property owners.
In some cases, the mast which holds the electric service wires to a customer’s home or business may have been damaged or torn away. Crews will reconnect the wires to a home, but only a licensed electrician can repair or replace a mast or a cable.

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Media Contacts: Josh Paciorek, 517-243-9036

The next news release is scheduled for the evening of Sunday, December 12.