Indiana Michigan Power has restored more than 55% of the nearly 20,000 customers who lost power Friday night and early Saturday as a result of the strong thunderstorms with significant lightning and high winds swept that through southwest Michigan and northern Indiana.

Crews discovered numerous fallen trees and limbs, at least 8 broken poles and at least a dozen spans of wire down as a result of the storm.

ESTIMATED RESTORATION TIMES (ETRs)

Estimated Times of Restoration have been established for customers impacted by the storms. Many customers will be restored before the listed times, as crews move from outage to outage to return power to all customers. ETRs for the affected areas are:

Michigan

Benton Harbor area: 75% of customers by 11 p.m. tonight and 100% by 11 p.m. Sunday

Three Rivers area: 85% of customers by 11 p.m. tonight and 100% by 3 p.m. Sunday

Buchanan area: 100% or customers by 8 p.m. tonight

Indiana

South Bend area: 100% by 11 p.m. tonight

Elkhart: All customers have been restored

Fort Wayne area: 100% by 11 p.m. tonight

OUTAGE NUMBERS:.

As of 2 p.m., approximate outage numbers were:

Michigan Total Customer Outages: 7,800

Benton Harbor area:  4,600

Buchanan area:  1,600

Three Rivers area:  1,500
 

Indiana Total Customer Outages: 750

Fort Wayne area: 550 

South Bend area: 200

SAFETY INFO

Please pay attention to several safety precautions:

• Downed power lines. Stay away from any downed wires and report them to I&M.  You can call us at 800-311-4634, report on our app or website, or call 911.
• Trees could fall or drop limbs at any moment, please look up.
• Standing water could hide debris or even downed wires.
• Roads will likely be wet, slick and covered with debris.
• Traffic lights may not be functioning. Please use caution and be mindful of first responders and utility workers on the roadways.
• Crews will be following all CDC guidelines on physical distancing and we urge the general public not to approach our crews.
• Temperatures and humidity levels remain high for this time of the year. We urge anyone working outside to look for signs of heat stress and take appropriate precautions at the first sign of heat-related fatigue.

STAY INFORMED

I&M encourages customers to use the Indiana Michigan Power app to monitor the status of any outage affecting your home or business. IndianaMichiganPower.com/App

You can sign up for text and email alerts on the app or at IndianaMichiganPower.com/Alerts

See the location and status of outages using our outage map at IndianaMichiganPower.com/OutageMap

For the latest updates please follow Indiana Michigan Power on Facebook and find us on Twitter @IN_MI_Power