The Consumers Energy outage map shows all of Clark Lake has no power. That’s not entirely accurate. Some areas, like Ocean Beach Road, portions of Hyde Road, and some Sandy Beach locations, do have power. Outage areas have received a message from Consumers Energy that service will be restored by late Friday night. As noted in previous stories on this website, restoration estimates notoriously miss the mark. Consumers says “more than 400 crews have restored electricity for more than146,000 customers and are working today to safely bring back power for the remainder of those experiencing outages. Some work will continue into Thursday in communities most badly damaged by Monday’s nearly 70 mph winds.”
At least two major power lines are down at Clark Lake, and no restoration activity has been witnessed at either. As reported last night, a line is down near Q Lane and South Shore. The photo below is courtesy of Chris Donahue.
A high tension line is down in the yard of Duane and Vicki Campbell on Lakeview West. The arrows point to the downed wire.
According the Campbells, it was a branch from this tree that took the wire down in Monday’s storm.
A neighbor, also on Lakeview West, watched it happen, and was taken aback by what she saw. Bev Cadwallader said she saw a huge bright flash with fire leaping in around the powerline at about 5:26 pm Monday. She was concerned the flames would ignite the trees in that forested area. But they did not. Both the Campbell’s and Bev heard three loud booms likely due to explosions at the transformers.
The Campbells attempted to notify Consumers Energy, and found getting through to a human was difficult. Once a person was reached, they were told to expect quick action. Eight hours later, a crew came out and taped off the area.
Consumers handed out water and ice to people in Jackson between 11 am and 1 pm today, and ice cream to those in Battle Creek between 4 pm and 6 pm.
Take a walk in affected areas and you can hear generators humming their own cacophony.
On Tuesday morning, the Jolly Rogers looked like it didn’t win against the wind.
No power means no water for those of us with electric pumps. No water means no toilets and no grinder pumps working.
And no humans at consumers. This annual problem is really irritating.
If the lines down are the lower lines on a pole, they are not power , cable and phone are the lowest on all poles !
A generator would help to minimize the irritation.