One of the Biggest Power Outages Con Ed Has Seen

JACKSON, MI (WHTC) - Consumers Energy crews are working around the clock to get the power back on for nearly 200-thousand customers around the state.

Consumers Energy spokesman Roger Morgenstern says this widespread power outage is one of the biggest they've ever dealt with. At one point yesterday some 217-thousand were in the dark due to the wind storm.

"It may be into Sunday before we get everybody restored. We've got over 500 broken poles in the state and over 3,000 down wires. In terms of customer numbers, it's the most since Christmas 2016. It's gonna go down as one of our larger events." 

The utility has over 16-hundred employees working to restore power around West Michigan and the rest of the state, and are bringing in more than 100 workers from Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.

Kent County was the hardest hit with over 23,000 customers without power. As of 5:00 a.m. Thursday morning, Allegan County has over 1,000 customers without power and Ottawa County has around 500.  Customers can sign up for outage alerts and restoration times by texting "REG" to 232273 or logging on to ConsumersEnergy.com/alerts. In the event of a power outage, you can reach Consumers Ed 24/7 at 1-800-477-5050  or online.   Additional storm and outage alerts are available online from the Consumers Energy outage center.