An Update from Consumers Energy

Brian Wheeler with Consumers Energy joins us to discuss the power outages from last night's storm and where things stand heading into the weekend. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adam the only one still without power on the West
Michigan's morning news team, and that's in an area that
got hit pretty hard last night, though those thunderstorms rolled
through for most of us. Brian Wheeler with Consumers Energy
on the liveline with us this morning. A long night
for you too, Brian, Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
So talk to us a little bit about the hardest
hit areas and restoration efforts underway.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, this storm, it really raced across the state. I
mean it came in straight off the lake. We were
looking this morning at a lot of damage and a
lot of power outages in Whiskeik and Allegan Kalamazoo Counties
in particular. But if you lived along that path through
Berry County to the Lansing area part east of that,
as the storm moved its way through, it costs a

(00:47):
lot of damage. Were no changers to this. So we've
got a game plan to restore power this morning, but
there's a lot to do.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
I will say this though, Brian, and I know for
the ten percent that don't have bower right now saying
what are you talking about, Pakita, But ninety percent plus
thirty eight hundred plus outages with what we saw, and
I agree with Steve, I thought it was going to
be a little bit worse. That is some of the
good news this morning. And also I want to throw
in their Battle Creek hit pretty hard, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh? Absolutely at Calhoun County as well. So you know,
I mean, we do a lot of work when the
skies are blue to fortify and strengthen the system to
make it more reliable. So you know, it's hard to
quantify or it's hard to put that perspective in that
it could be worse in terms of damage, but you know,
so we'll focus on what's in front of us today.
That's really what matters most to people. Over five hundred

(01:34):
crews will be at work. We're trying to find more
resources everywhere we can, whether it's crews here from Michigan.
We'll see if we get some help from out of state,
which would not be out of out of the norm.
The goal, of course, is to get the lights turned
on quickly to everybody, but it's going to take today,
we'll probably take into the weekend as well.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Sometimes we take for granted those power supplies and power
lines too, and to that point, when it comes to
safety and clean up. Sometimes we stumble out into a
brush pile or a pilot. We've seen this before and
there may be a wire a down line waiting for
that you didn't even.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Know could be there.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So caution as always.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Brian, Yeah, absolutely, and you think about this too, right
and overnight storm a lot of us have this Tonaro
sirens going off when we were trying to sleep. We're
all gonna be a little groggy today, especially if the
coffee maker is not working. So you know, if you're
hitting your car to go out, whether it's to work
or to grab donuts to the family or something, you're
going to have to really take your time, go slow.

(02:32):
You're going to see cruise by the side of the road.
There could be down wires that we want you to say,
twenty five feet away from It's just a matter of
really keeping your mind about you and being especially careful
in a challenging situation.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Consumers Energy Spokespirst and Brian Wheeler. Great stuff is always
thanks Brian, Yeah, thank you. Yeah he didn't say it,
but I will add rotten moods. There could be some
rotten moods out there today. Yes, you would be careful