Storms leave some areas in southern Michigan without power
Severe weather Wednesday left a bit of a mess for Michigan to clean up, especially in the state’s southeast region.
Wind gusts of up to 70 mph in some areas felled trees, crushed homes, damaged cars and took out utility lines.
The good news, meanwhile, is that weather forecasters did not report any tornadoes or heavy hail damage.
In lower Michigan, Lenawee, Hillsdale and Monroe counties — while wet and drying out from Wednesday's rain — came away from the line of summer storms mostly unscathed. Power outages stand as the biggest issue facing these counties as well as Jackson, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.
In Lenawee County, data provided by www.poweroutage.us shows 1,676 customers were without power as of about 10:30 a.m. Thursday. That equates to about 3.42% of the entire county without power, the website said.
The majority of customers in Lenawee County without power are on lines from Consumers Energy, 1,623. DTE Energy reported just 53 customers in Lenawee without power, while Midwest Energy Cooperative reported all customers with power in Lenawee.
PowerOutage.us showed 6,060 customers in Monroe County without power Thursday morning, or 7.99% of the county. Of those customers, 4,804 of them were Consumers Energy customers and 1,256 on DTE Energy lines.
Hillsdale County was reported to have 10.6% of its entire county without power at 2,195 customers, all of them serviced by Consumers Energy. Significant outages were reported in Hanover, Horton and Jerome.
Cement City was one of the hardest hit areas of the three counties when it comes to power outages, with 85% of its Consumers Energy customers without power.
Erie in Monroe County showed 1,180 customers out of 2,520 (46.9%) were affected.
Brooklyn in Jackson County had 43.7% of its Consumers Energy customers without power. Clarklake was encroaching on almost 70% of its Consumers customers without power.
In preparation for Wednesday’s storm, Consumers Energy said it staged crews and prepared essential materials needed to assist with restoration efforts.
In addition to those areas dealing with power outages, Michigan also grappled with a heat wave Thursday that had temperatures in the 90s and humidity levels that made it feel like almost 100 degrees.
A heat advisory is in effect for Hillsdale County until Saturday, July 29, and Monroe County was under an Air Quality Alert Thursday for elevated levels of ozone along along with St. Clair, Livingston, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.
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The city of Hudson said it will have a curbside storm yard debris pickup day for its residents on Aug. 7. Any downed tree limbs can be placed out to the curb for Hudson’s Department of Public Works crews to remove that day. Debris and limbs must be reduced to 5 feet in length or shorter and placed together going in the same direction, the city said.
Residents with questions can contact Hudson city offices at 517-448-8983.
The Lenawee County Fair, which started Sunday and continues through Saturday, made some adjustments to its Wednesday lineup of activities because of the weather.
The Your Generation in Concert performance at the bandshell was canceled, while most other events, including the midway rides and the grandstand demolition derby, continued after the fair closed for a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon because of the rain and storms but reopened at 4:30 p.m. It was operating as normal for Thursday.
The Detroit Free Press contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Storms leave some areas in southern Michigan without power
