MUSKEGON, Michigan (AP) — Severe thunderstorms have cut off power to more than 150,000 homes and businesses in Michigan, less than a week after thousands of people in suburban Detroit were left without electricity for days.
Around 150,000 Consumers Energy customers have been without power since 11 a.m. Tuesday morning. Most of these outages occurred in Muskegon and Oceana counties in western Michigan along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, the energy supplier said.
Consumers Energy said emergency crews would work throughout Tuesday to restore power to affected areas, focusing “first on assessing damage and restoring power to key customers.”
Another 11,000 Indiana Michigan Power customers were also without power as of 10:30 a.m., most of them in southwest Michigan. The utility said the Three Rivers region was hardest hit by the storms, which knocked down trees and branches, causing the outages.
About 500 utility workers were en route from communities in northern Indiana to southwest Michigan to help restore power, but I&M said more storms are forecast for Tuesday and Tuesday night that could hamper recovery efforts.
“During high winds, lightning and heavy rain, it is not safe for our line workers to work in aerial work platforms or on the ground with electrical equipment,” the utility company said in a statement.
