Sixty mile per hour winds knocked down trees and limbs in West Michigan Monday afternoon, leaving 83,000 Consumers Energy customers without power.
The utility says they deployed 500 crews and restored power to 30,000 customers overnight.
Brian Wheeler is a spokesperson with Consumers Energy. He urged residents in the affected areas to stay home if they can.
He also recommended "being careful if you're out on the roads, if you're at home using a generator safely in an outside area away from your home, and of course if you ever see a downed wire — and there are still many downed wires across the state — staying at least 25 feet away. If that wire is not being secured or guarded in some way, call 911."
Calhoun and Kalamazoo County were hit the hardest, as well as along the I-94 corridor south from Kalamazoo to Jackson and as far south as the Ohio border.
The area west and north of Grand Rapids was also impacted.
Wheeler said Michigan's weather is getting more severe. And yesterday's storm is no exception.
"It definitely kicked up to a higher impact than you might have seen in the past," he said. "So when the weather is good, we spend a lot of time and effort to secure the grid. That means putting in stronger poles, doing more aggressive forestry work to keep trees and limbs away from power lines."
Wheeler estimates most customers will have power restored by midnight tonight.
