KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — The weekend storm is living up to expectations in much of the state, exceeding them in others but it hasn’t impacted the southern tier of counties as much as it has counties to the north.
Roger Morgenstern with Consumers Energy says at the peak Saturday, they had about 50,000 customers without power, and they managed to get that down to about 11-thousand early Sunday morning, before the numbers started to climb again.
They expect to see new outages appear through Sunday and perhaps into Monday as ice laden branches break and take out powerlines, throughout the lower Peninsula.
They have started calling in power crews from other states to help with repairs.
There were no outages Sunday morning in the Kalamazoo area but it’s blacked out customers as close by as Allegan County.
While ice has accumulated on cars and in trees in the Kalamazoo area, it has not accumulated on roads or sidewalks, but it’s not over yet and it’s a much different story just to the north where the ice is sticking.
Homeowners in Battle Creek are reporting the accumulation of ice on decks and in trees.
Its caused dozens of slideoffs in mid-Michigan. The most serious involved the rollover of a fire truck in Coopersville just after 11 pm that left four firefighters with non-life threatening injuries.
Police in many areas to the north of Kalamazoo are telling people just to stay home, as sleet and freezing rain has left a coat of ice on everything.
Flights out of Gerald R. Ford have been cancelled or delayed and many churches in communities in Mid and Northern Michigan are cancelling services.
Much of the northern Lower Peninsula ihas gotten over a foot of heavy wet snow.
The weather warnings and advisories begin expiring at noon in southern Michigan and 5pm further to the north, as warmer temperatures push the mercury up above freezing.
It’s all part of a huge storm system that is plaguing two-thirds of the country with blizzards, tornadoes, freezing rain, high winds, fires and snow.
Three deaths have been linked to the storm system, so far. Severe thunderstorms extend from Tennessee across to Mississippi, Alabama and southern Louisiana.
These storms have caused widespread power outages and damaging wind gusts. Experts say tornadoes are also a possibility, as the storm moves into Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. ‘
Extreme winds have caused fires in Texas and Oklahoma. Winter freeze warnings are also in effect across eastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas.
Weather experts say there’s snow falling across essentially the entire-north-central section of the country.
States like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and New York are facing heavy snow, strong winds and freezing rain.
So far, South Dakota and northern Nebraska have been hit the hardest with snow and blizzard conditions. Minnesota is under a historic storm warning, with snow falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour. The storm is heading up toward the Great Lakes area and could result in more power outages and dangerous road conditions.
