Multiple storms rolled through Michigan on Friday and knocked out power to tens of thousands of Consumers Energy customers, with the utility reporting about 46,700 outages statewide by about 6:30 p.m. The hardest hit area was Kalamazoo County, where the outage map at one point showed more than 17,000 customers affected.
The outages gave the storm system an immediate footprint across the state. More than 5,000 outages were reported in multiple counties in West Michigan on Friday afternoon, after storms overnight brought lightning and gusty winds and another round moved through West Michigan later in the day.
For people tracking a DTE Power Outage search, the reason was simple: the service disruption was still unfolding Friday evening. Portage reported a 79 mile per hour gust at 4:05 p.m., South Haven gusted to 60 miles per hour and Grand Rapids stayed just below the severe threshold at about 54 miles per hour, a reminder that the strongest wind hit unevenly and left some places far worse off than others.
Consumers spokesman Matt Johnson said the Jackson-based utility had about 300 crews at work and that conditions were looking good for power to be restored. He said the company had been planning for the storms for days, but he did not give a completion time for the remaining customers still waiting in the dark.
That gap matters because the number still without service was not small when the evening arrived. The storm damage fit into a familiar pattern of weather-related outages in Michigan, but Friday’s sequence of overnight lightning, morning outages and late-day wind left Consumers Energy with a large cleanup and no firm end point yet for the final restorations.
