Crews continue to tackle outages in Lansing days after EF-1 tornado
LANSING, Mich. (WILX) — The storm has passed, but some people living in Mid-Michigan are still in the dark due to the destruction it left behind.
Utility companies are calling in reinforcements to get customers back on the grid, but the effort has proven difficult, with some areas of the city damaged worse than others.
On Saturday, the Lansing Board of Water and Light focused its attention on a stretch of Wood Street in the eastern part of the city, where multiple transmission poles were knocked down by the 100-mile winds that blew through on Thursday night.
“In the past 25 years, we’ve only had two of those poles come down, and that was a tornado 25 years ago,” said BWL General Manager Dick Peffley. “This tornado took down 22 of those poles in four different locations, so you can see the magnitude of the carnage, is what I’m calling it.”
Downed lines left thousands of people without power, now for several days, much to the frustration of residents like Bill Metros, who lives in one of the last few neighborhoods waiting for the lights to come back on.
“I spent all day yesterday, trying to get my phone charged,” he told News 10 on Saturday. “I get nothing in my house. I can’t cook. I can’t watch TV.”
Relief seemingly on the way, as Peffley said power crews are making significant progress. As of Saturday morning, the goal was restoring power for at least 2,500 additional customers.
“We’re doing everything we can to get them back up,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of staff to do it. We’ve got the supplies we need.”
Following close behind are City of Lansing crews tasked with clearing out fallen trees and debris. Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said they too are making progress, hoping to see most city streets back open to drivers by the end of the weekend.
“And the city is going to work just as fast as the board to try and get streets open and make sure people can get where they need to go,” he said.
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