Consumers, DTE hope to restore power by Sunday night - Lansing State Journal

Consumers, DTE hope to restore power by Sunday night

Consumers, DTE say power should be back on by Sunday night

LANSING — Michigan's two largest utilities said about 20,000 customers still without electricity in and around Lansing should have service restored by Sunday night.

Consumers Energy had cut its statewide outages from about 200,000 to 70,120 shortly after 9 a.m., according to the company's online outage map. Most of the outages are centered on the Grand Rapids, Lansing and Jackson areas.

The Lansing area appears to have more than 17,000 homes and businesses without power, down from more than 40,000 after Thursday night's storms and tornado that struck east of Lansing near Williamston and Webberville.

“We are committed to our customers and working to ensure that most of them will finish the weekend with power,” said Norm Kapala, one of Consumers Energy’s officers in charge for the power restoration.

The company is providing a free lunch from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday in Grand Ledge at the A&W Restaurant parking lot, 525 W. Saginaw Highway. A free hot dog and root beer combo will be provided to community members.

DTE Energy said Sunday morning it has fewer than 56,000 customers without power and had restored about 80% of its original outages. The company's outage map showed fewer than 3,000 customers without power in eastern Ingham County and western Livingston County, in and around Williamston, Webberville and Fowlerville. That was down from more than 6,000 outages in that area that was hard hit by the EF2 tornado that included 125 mile per hour winds.

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The Lansing Board of Water & Light, which originally had about 33,000 customers without power, reported Sunday morning on its outage map that about 11,746 customers were impacted by about 562 outages. The company has officially estimated restoration for all customers by Tuesday but General Manager Dick Peffley said he expected the company would complete work sooner.

Peffley described the effort as the "largest restoration effort in BWL history." He said the company has 25% more "boots on the ground" than the historic ice storm of December 2013 that left some BWL customers without power for nearly two weeks. He also said there are more wires down across BWL's service area, which includes Lansing and surrounding townships, than during the ice storm, although Thursday's storm broke fewer power poles.

Portland-based The Tri-County Electric Cooperative originally had several thousand outages in southern Ingham County and Eaton, Ionia and Clinton counties, but most of those were restored by Sunday morning, with a handful of outages remaining.