- Chris Laird, Vice President of electric operations and Greg Salisbury, Vice President of electric distribution engineering for Consumers Energy provided an update on power restoration Monday morning
- As of Monday, 86% of customers power was restored
- About 800 crews from across the Midwest have came to Michigan to assist with the numerous power outages
- Consumers Energy emphasized their long term plan for future severe weather storms including an aggressive preventative maintenance program, A new predictive model, an addition of 25,000 fuses, a modernized grid and underground wires
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
Crews with Consumers Energy are still picking up the pieces from last Thursday's storm.
"Statewide we had about 200,000 customers power out in total."
As of Monday afternoon, that means at least 86% of customers power has been restored.
Consumers Energy has brought in a record 800 crews from across the Midwest to attend to down and damaged power lines throughout Mid Michigan
"They work 16 hours on and they get eight hours of rest. So they're coming in, they're making sure they get together as a team. They're talking through safety,"
And they're talking through getting the lights on for the remaining areas by prioritizing the highest customer counts.
"We appreciate their patience, we recognize that being without power for any amount of time is hard. And we're working hard right now to restore power. And we're working hard over the next five years to prevent these type of events as more extreme weather seems to be in the pattern"
This five-year plan includes an aggressive preventative maintenance program,
"We'll have looked at 50,000 miles of wire in two years. That's enough time that's enough miles to go around the globe at the equator twice"
A new predictive model, an addition of 25,000 fuses, a modernized grid and underground wires
"We'll bury those wires and then it doesn't matter how big a tree gets blown over by the wind and falls on the line. There just won't be the outage so our five year plan calls for significant improvement and all those factors to be ready for the increasingly severe weather"
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