Consumers Energy : Restores Power to 40% of Customers Affected by Powerful Thursday Storm

Jackson, Mich. Saturday, August 26, 2023

Consumers Energy has restored power to 40% of customers impacted by a violent storm that swept through Michigan late Thursday. Around the clock efforts continue today as Consumers Energy, and crews from as far away as Pennsylvania, Alabama and Kentucky work 16-hour shifts to bring customers back online.

As of 10 a.m., more than 78,000 of the nearly 200,000 affected homes and businesses have had power restored as work continues to restore all outages by the end of Sunday.

"Our communities are depending on us to safely and quickly get power restored so they can begin healing from the damage and devastation of the storms," said Chris Laird, one of Consumers Energy's Officers in Charge for the power restoration.

As a gesture of goodwill, Consumers Energy is also providing a free community dinner from 4 -6 p.m. at the Alpine Township Office in Comstock Park.

That's just one of many communities in our state recovering from damage caused by three confirmed tornadoes and strong winds that gusted to as much as 90 mph. The storm left a path of damage from Grand Rapids through Southeast Michigan.

Laird continued to urge people to stay at least 25 feet away from downed power lines, and to report unguarded downed lines by calling 9-1-1 and Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050.

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

Consumers Energy urges 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.
• 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 that holds the electric service wires to a 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.

Consumers Energy is Michigan's largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.7 million of the state's 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.

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Media Contact: Douglas Deyoung, 231-929-6234 ordouglas.deyoung@cmsenergy.com

The next news release is scheduled for 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26.