GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With power knocked out to about 150,000 people across Michigan, Consumers Energy is now dispatching hundreds of crews to restore power.
Brian Wheeler with Consumers Energy said there are about 200 crews working 16-hour shifts to get the lights back on. As of Tuesday afternoon, Wheeler said power will be fully restored by Thursday.
"We want people to know that we're putting all of our resources to work here," he said. "We're moving in line workers and crews from other parts of the state, and we put the ask out to contractors to help us in the effort and get the power back on to everybody. We know it's important."
Consumers Energy is considering bringing in crews from out-of-state to help ease the burden—especially because the widespread damage and outages caused by these storms are making restoration more difficult, according to Wheeler.
"One challenge we're facing, of course, is that West Michigan's been hit particularly hard, all the way from Muskegon to Kalamazoo, but then there also are outages in the northeast part of the state," he said. "So there's a lot of area to cover here."
Wheeler also said most of the downed power lines are smaller, local lines, not main lines. This makes it more time consuming for crews to address and more dangerous both for workers and residents.
In the meantime, customers are urged to make a plan to stay cool during the warmer weather. Wheeler said Consumers Energy will be working with local officials to organize things like cooling centers and other resources.
The Consumers Energy outage map shows real-time updates on power outages and their estimated restoration times. You can see that here.
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