WEST MICHIGAN — Over 20 thousand people are without power tonight as strong storms batter southern Michigan.
Intense storms moved through the area starting at about 11 a.m., dissipating close to 9:30 p.m. Counties in our southwest viewing area saw damaging winds, lightning, and golf-ball sized hail.
FOX 17 spoke with Doug DeYoung at Consumer’s Energy. Crews are working around the clock to restore power, but DeYoung says the storm-fronts that moved through gave Michigan a double dose of potential trouble.
“We had 2 storm-fronts move through today.” DeYoung said “We’re watching storms traveling from north of the Muskegon over to the Flint area.”
Crews are working through the night to assess damage and get the power restored. Their outage map will be updated immediately with any changes.
DeYoung had one thing he could not stress enough, “Stay at least 25′ away from downed power lines and call 911 or 800-477-5050 to report them.”
Downed power lines can often be silent, showing no signs of their true danger.
Our Meteorologists, Kevin Craig and Erik Kostrzewa, tracked the storms this evening live on Facebook and say the threat of storms is now leaving our area. FOX 17 is always on the look out for great pictures of Michigan’s often intense weather. Please send your weather updates and pictures to news@fox17online.com or message us on Facebook.
