Thousands remain without power in Northern Michigan as a weekend ice storm has knocked down trees and power lines and left many roads impassable.
Ice storm warnings and winter storm warnings for several counties were set to expire at 11 p.m., with a winter storm for portions of other Eastern Upper Peninsula counties going through 6 a.m. tomorrow.
Late Sunday afternoon, crews were working to restore power to nearly 120,000 customers.
As of 5 p.m. Great Lakes Energy had more than 42,000 of its 132,000 customers affected by outages in the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula. Consumers Energy reported more than 44,000 customers without power with the highest numbers along and east of I-75 from Gaylord toward Harrisville.
Presque Isle Electric & Gas reports 31,560 without power in its service area of Northeast Lower Michigan. In the Eastern Upper Peninsula, Mackinac County reports more than 2,500 customers without electricity.
Consumers Energy reported more than 600 crew members on the ground.
“We’re working to restore power, and we’re closely monitoring the forecast to respond quickly if more storms develop elsewhere.”
The City of Harbor Springs reports power could be out “several hours to a few days.” Presque Isle Electric CEO Allan Berg said in a release, “This storm is unlike anything we have experienced. We expect this outage to extend through several days and encourage our members to seek shelter and plan accordingly.”
Most cities and counties affected by the ice storm have requested nonessential vehicles to stay off the roads and issued shelter-in-place orders.
“We want all residents to stay home, stay warm and stay safe,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said Sunday evening. “Conditions are hazardous and the less traffic on the roads, the safer it will be for those who are working to respond to emergencies.”
Crawford County Emergency Management reported power will likely be restored to the city of Grayling Tuesday into Wednesday in some neighborhoods.