MICHIGAN, USA — Thousands are waking up without power Friday after severe storms and an EF-1 tornado rolled across Michigan Thursday evening.
The storms began a little before 8:30 p.m. and brought an EF-1 tornado with winds up to 110 mph, heavy rain and lightning to West Michigan. This caused widespread damage, including downed trees and wires, debris blocking roads and even a roof ripped off a home in northern Kent County.
After the storms came through, nearly 200,000 people in Michigan were without power. As of Friday morning, about 186,000 customers are still in the dark.
Consumers Energy sent crews to begin restoration efforts overnight. Brian Wheeler with Consumers Energy is encouraging customers to remain patient while crews work around-the-clock to restore power.
"We spend a lot of time when the weather is good to keep trees away from power lines," Wheeler said. "But of course, you've got entire trees that are falling down across roads, into yards, and that's going to cause some challenges to clean up as well as restore the power. So not an easy process."
Wheeler says that while this is an all-hands-on-deck situation for Consumers Energy, it will take time to restore power to all customers.
"Certainly there's no question that power restoration work is going to continue into the weekend," he said.
If you see a downed wire, you are asked to stay at least 25 feet away and report the wire by calling Consumers Energy at 1-800-477-5050.
To get real-time updates on power restorage efforts, see the Consumers Energy Outage Map here.
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