Nearly 30,000 customers of the Lansing Board of Water & Light lost power after a suspected lightning strike hit one of the utility company's substations on Sunday morning. At 1 P.M. the outage number has dropped to just over 1,000 customers as BWL continues to restore service.
A spokesman for the Lansing Board of Water & Light says that a suspected lightning strike hit the Eckert Substation just before 9:00 AM on Sunday, October 16, 2016, causing it to trip offline.
The power outage is affecting more than 25,000 customers across the BWL service territory. The power outage is also affecting multiple traffic lights in the Lansing and East Lansing area. Intersections with traffic lights that are not working should be treated as 4-way stops.
BWL also reminds people to stay at least 25 feet from downed power lines. The BWL is working to assess damage and we will update this story with power restoration times when that information becomes available.
If your power is out, the BWL asks you to report outages and downed lines by calling 877-295-5001. Outages can also be reported by visiting the Outage Center, using the BWL Outage Center mobile app or texting “out” or “outage” to 898295 or txtbwl.
The BWL will also post updates on their social media pages. Click the links with this story for more information, and stay with fox47news.com and FOX 47News for complete coverage.
