Consumers Energy hands out ice, water as crews work to restore power to thousands

COURTLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Consumers Energy said crews are working to restore power to customers a day after storms moved through West Michigan.

Cars arrived in droves to the Courtland Township Offices near Rockford on Wednesday afternoon to pick up free ice and water from representatives of Consumer Energy. Thousands of households in the area are enduring a power outage lasting more than 24 hours, caused by a powerful storm that rolled through the region Tuesday afternoon.

“We were driving home after picking up the kids from school and it was really scary at first,” one Cedar Springs recalled. “It was about 3:15 p.m. yesterday. So, it’s been since then.”

The widespread outages hit rural communities like those near Courtland Township especially hard, prompting Wednesday’s water and ice distribution.

“We understand that especially in a rural area that a lot of customers rely on wells for water and obviously refrigeration for ice,” Consumers Energy Executive Director of Electric Operations Andy Snider said.

For one family picking up water and ice, the outage was especially ill-timed and continued to get more and more serious as each hour ticked by.

“Honestly, it’s been scary a little bit. I had just gone grocery shopping so all the food is spoiled. I’m on a very tight budget with five kids,” the Cedar Springs resident said. “Originally, it was supposed to be 5:45 a.m. (Wednesday) but that’s obviously been pushed now.”

In a news release Wednesday afternoon, the utility company said it had restored power to more than half of the more than 190,00 customers affected by Tuesday’s storms. In West Michigan, Consumers said most were in Kent, Ionia and Montcalm counties.

Consumers Energy called in more than 180 crews to work on bringing back power, plus more than 200 pieces of equipment from out of state. They hope to have power restored to all affected customers by the end of the day Thursday.

The following counties had more than 100 Consumers customers without service as of about 11:25 p.m. Wednesday:

• Ionia County: 1,306
• Kent County: 2,362
• Mecosta County: 320
• Montcalm County: 2,662
• St. Joseph County: 106

Consumers reminded drivers to give crews plenty of room and that everyone should always stay away from downed power lines.

Some schools in Ionia and Kent counties were closed Wednesday due to no power, including Rockford Public’s Cannonsburg, Crestwood and Edgerton and Belding Area Schools.

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