KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Thousands of neighbors in Plainwell and Otsego are dealing with downed power lines, uprooted trees, and property damage after a storm moved through the area Tuesday night.
Consumers Energy prepared additional crews to address the widespread outages. I spoke with the company about when electricity will return for the thousands without power.
"That is the question everyone has now. We will have the majority of people who are out now, restored by tonight," Greg Sailsbury said.
Sailsbury is the president of electric distribution for Consumers Energy. The company expects power to be restored by Wednesday night.
In Plainwell, crews blocked off access to neighborhoods near the Dollar General on Miller Street to make repairs.
Abe Young, a Plainwell homeowner, experienced significant property damage. His garage was pushed off its foundation, and his fence is missing.
"Somehow slipped off the foundation and collapsed two walls, surprised it’s still standing," Young said.
'Trees falling like dominoes': Plainwell and Otsego neighbors face severe storm damage and power outages
"We had a lot of downed power lines. That was scary when we realized there was just downed power lines everywhere, stretched in our yard almost touching our house," Young said. "Luckily no one got hit by a downed powerline. Luckily the house survived."
For Young, the cleanup is just beginning, though he noted his end of the street fared better than others.
"It’s carnage down that way," Young said.
In nearby Otsego, the power outages left many residents without working coffee pots, leading to an hour-long wait at Mezzo Coffee downtown. The morning rush left only one cookie on the shelf, rivaling the biggest events in town.
"I feel bad that we ran out of baked goods, pretty early in the day, but we didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic that was going to come through," said the owner of Mezzo, Olivia Andrade.
Elsewhere, traffic slowed through much of the town due to downed trees.
"We got trees falling like dominoes," Young added.
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