Michigan's weekend weather turned catastrophic yesterday as severe thunderstorms ripped through the lower peninsula. This followed an ice storm on Saturday that mainly affected Northern Michigan. According to CBS News, these storms have left three dead in the Kalamazoo area and thousands without power across the state.
In a tragic turn of events, a tree fell onto a car in Climax Township, resulting in the deaths of three occupants and injuries to three other family members. This is one of the most severe outcomes of the storms, alongside extensive structural damage, with schools in West Michigan, like Beach Elementary School in Fruitport, being so heavily impacted that classes were canceled today, as the Detroit Free Press reported.
Utility companies like DTE Energy and Consumers Energy have been extensively affected, with DTE reporting over 22,000 customers without service, mostly concentrated in southeast Michigan. Meanwhile, Consumers Energy's outage map showed significant outages across the state, from Chelsea to Dansville, according to MLive, whose reporting disclosed that worker crews from four states were deployed to handle the crisis.
As crews from neighboring states join Michigan's repair efforts, the collective toll of outages numbers over 265,000 customers statewide. Kent County reports the most outages, followed by Genesee County and the Calhoun, Cheboygan, and Ingham regions, which also face extensive power outages.
