UPDATE: Power was restored at 6:10 p.m. More than 8,000 customers ended up being affected by the outage. The cause of the outage was equipment failure in a substation on Wealthy St. The Griffins' doors are open and they are starting at 8 p.m.
ORIGINAL STORY: According to a Consumers Energy outage map, about 6,700 customers in the Grand Rapids area are without power.
The first outage was reported around 3:38 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7.
Advisory: Large power outage in downtown area. 911 & emergency services remain fully operational. Contact power co. for outage info. pic.twitter.com/xew2j64PTk
— Grand Rapids Police (@GrandRapidsPD) October 7, 2017
According to representative from Consumers Energy, power is estimated to be restored around 6:30 p.m. They are not sure what the cause of the outage is, but it is involving their high voltage system, which powers parts of the downtown area.
Crews are on the scene trying to solve the problem.
GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff's Department are helping direct traffic downtown.
.@GrandRapidsPD all over downtown directing traffic. Outages at many traffic lights. More random with buildings @wzzm13 pic.twitter.com/5NG3EpQMfk
— Noah Fromson (@NoahFromson) October 7, 2017
Four-way stop at Leonard & Turner in Grand Rapids. Some close calls w/traffic lights out. No power for thousands in area @wzzm13 pic.twitter.com/EB7vTLZRUO
— Noah Fromson (@NoahFromson) October 7, 2017
According to a representative from the Grand Rapids Griffins, they are delaying when doors will open for the game tonight. Doors where scheduled to open at 6 p.m. but staff is waiting to see when power will come back on.
Doors to @VanAndelArena will likely be delayed due to a power outage. Restoration efforts are underway & we will provide an update soon.
— GrandRapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) October 7, 2017
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