Power restoration efforts in Lansing area expected to last through the weekend

LANSING — Power restoration efforts across the region could extend into early next week based on the latest estimates from utilities on Saturday morning.

The Lansing Board of Water & Light, which initially had about 33,000 customers without power after high winds struck the area Thursday night, had restored service to nearly half those customers, with about 17,000 homes and businesses remaining in the dark.

BWL General Manager Dick Peffley said he expected that crews would restore power to another 10,000 customers Saturday, and that the remaining repairs would happen over the coming days.

Peffley said the city-owned utility has finished assessing damage and estimated final restoration estimates could take until Tuesday, although he quickly noted he expects repairs to happen "well ahead of that."

BWL customers can see estimated outage restoration times on the company's online outage map.

"We're asking customers to be patient," Peffley said. "Restoration times are going down, not up."

He noted that repairs were proceeding at a faster pace due to several factors, including that all roads and streets had been cleared enough of trees and limbs to be accessible to crews and about 100 line workers from other utilities in Pennsylvania, Iowa and Kentucky were working on Lansing, in addition to crews from other utilities in Michigan. On Friday some streets were inaccessible, he said.

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.

BWL is prioritizing hospitals, urgent care facilities, water pumping facilities, police and fire departments, waste water treatment plants and pumping stations, in that order. Efforts are then focused on restoring "All other restorations not immediately involving public safety will be scheduled to restore service to "circuits with the largest number of customers within the shortest amount of time."

On Saturday, the utility deployed 33 line crews, each with three to four workers, on 16-hour shifts.

Mayor Andy Schor, who joined Peffley at a press conference in a south Lansing neighborhood hard hit by the storm, said all four of the city's community centers are open for people who need shelter.

Schor said he has sent an emergency declaration to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and is in contact with Ingham County officials and local congressional representatives in an effort to get aid for Lansing.

He said city public works crews are working 12-hour shifts to clean up trees and debris, and staff are focusing first on high volume streets and roads and one-way streets and other areas to make sure residents have access to their homes.

He asked for "grace and patience" from residents, saying of the cleanup: "This is going to take several weeks."

He urged residents to treat non-working stop lights at four-way stops, to avoid kayaking or other activities in the city's rivers, which have high water levels, and to beware of hanging limbs in the city's parks because of the storm.

He said most of city's River Trail is open and clear, except for a portion around Hawk Island.

While Lansing was hit hard areas east toward Williamston were struck by a tornado, including a portion of I-96 where 17 semis were flipped, one person killed and several critically injured. Some families' homes and property were severely damaged. By Saturday, the National Weather Service had confirmed that seven tornadoes touched down in Michigan during the late-night thunderstorms Thursday, including six in southeast Michigan.

Consumers Energy has restored service to 40% of its 200,000 customers that lost power, and as of 10 a.m. about 122,000 remained without electricity.

Many customers in Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties were still without power Saturday morning, although the company estimated that many of those outages would be fixed by the end of the day Saturday. However, some outages on the utility's outage map showed no restoration date and noted the outage was still be assessed.

Consumers 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.

DTE Energy's online outage map showed more than 2,000 customers between Williamston and Fowlerville with outages. The company said "We expect to have 80% of customers impacted by this week’s severe weather restored by end of Saturday and all storm outages to be restored by the end of Sunday."

The Tri-County Electric Cooperative also had several thousand outages in southern Ingham County and Eaton, Ionia and Clinton counties. No restoration times were immediately available.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: BWL, Consumers, DTE give estimates on restoring electric service