Consumers Energy Crews Nearing Halfway Point in Storm Restoration

JACKSON, Mich., Nov. 6, 2022 – Consumers Energy crews made excellent progress today, restoring electric service to nearly half of those customers impacted by the weekend’s powerful windstorm. The energy provider is also taking steps to prioritize polling locations that are without service to ensure residents can vote in Michigan’s midterm elections on Tuesday.

“Consumers Energy crews made great strides, aided by calmer weather today, to turn the lights back on for nearly half of our customers impacted by this weekend’s damaging windstorm,” said Scott McIntosh, one of Consumers Energy’s Officers in Charge for the storm event. “We appreciate the patience of all our customers and will continue to work diligently day and night until every customer has been restored.”

As of 4:30 p.m., about 60,000 Consumers Energy customers have had their power restored. A total of about 140,000 customers have been affected by the damaging weather that featured wind gusts over 65 mph.

With midterm elections taking place Tuesday, Consumers Energy is working to ensure residents in its service territory, whose polling precincts have been impacted by the extreme weather, have the chance to vote in person. The energy provider worked with the Secretary of State’s office and local clerks to identify polling locations in its service territory affected by the storm. Those locations are being prioritized with the goal of restoring each voting location by 11 p.m. Monday.

Customers can report an outage and check the status of outage by visiting www.ConsumersEnergy.com/OutageCenter. They can also sign up to get outage alerts and restoration times sent to a phone, email or text message, Text ‘REG' to 232273 or visit www.ConsumersEnergy.com/alerts.

McIntosh urged people to keep safety a top priority and stay at least 25 feet away from downed power lines, keep children and/or pets away, and report the issue by calling 9-1-1 and Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050. Consumers Energy asks the public to keep a safe distance from crews.

Consumers Energy also asks the public to keep important safety tips in mind:

·        Be alert to crews working along roads. Drivers should slow down or stop and wait for oncoming traffic to clear so they safely can go past workers on roadsides.

·        Call 2-1-1 if you are looking for help connecting to resources that offer assistance in your community. 2-1-1 is a free statewide service.

·        Never use a generator in an attached garage, basement, enclosed patio or near any air intakes. Doing so could cause a generator to produce hazardous levels of carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless and deadly gas. Read more guidance on safe generator use here.

·        Consumers Energy will trim or remove trees interfering with electric restoration activities. Once safe to do so, clean-up of debris from tree trimming or removal during a storm emergency is the responsibility of individual property owners.

·        In some cases, the mast that holds the electric service wires to a home or business may have been damaged or torn away. Crews will reconnect the wires to a home, but only a licensed electrician can repair or replace a mast or a cable.

Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.8 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.

Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.8 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.