GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A strong line of storms rushed over West Michigan Thursday night, bringing with it strong winds and possible tornadoes and knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers.
Muskegon County took the first hard hit, with more than 20,000 customers there without power, according to Consumers Energy’s interactive outage map. As the storm marched inland, outage numbers continued to grow. By around 1 a.m. Friday, about 205,000 Consumers customers statewide were without service. Of those, about 50,000 were in Kalamazoo County.
Downed trees, damaged buildings after strong storms rip through West Michigan
Outages in West Michigan by county as of 1 a.m. Friday:
- Allegan County: 12,348
- Barry County: 8,840
- Branch County: 667
- Calhoun County: 21,672
- Ionia County: 3,933
- Kalamazoo County: 49,940
- Kent County: 11,352
- Mecosta County: 156
- Montcalm County: 549
- Muskegon County: 21,360
- Newaygo County: 2,541
- Oceana County: 142
- Ottawa County: 13,952
- St. Joseph County: 4,198
- Van Buren County: 5,279
Ottawa County also reported that nearly 5,000 customers who get their power from the utilities in Grand Haven and Holland were also without service.
Indiana Michigan Power Co. was also tracking a number of outages as of around 1 a.m.:
- Berrien County: 18,809
- Cass County: 2,383
- St. Joseph County: 1,782
- Van Buren County: 9,375
Consumers told customers earlier in the day that it was staging to respond to the severe weather, with some 500 crews crews ready to go…