For more information contact: Email:

Mark Nixon : 517-702-6735 MDN@LBWL.COM

*UPDATE*
BWL restores power to about 6,000 customers

Lansing Board of Water & Light crews today restored power to more than 6,000 customers following weekend storms in the Greater Lansing area.

By late morning today, about 7,100 customers remained without electrical power, compared to 13,700 customers without power early this morning.

However, BWL officials caution that it will likely be several days before all customers have power restored. Many outages are caused by trees and tree limbs that have fallen on power lines, such as in a residential backyard. Using that example, even when power is restored, it may mean just a few customers will have electricity again.

The weekend storms have created several hundred such instances, which means it will take time for BWL crews to clear the mess and restore power.

By mid-afternoon Sunday, BWL crews had restored power to all but about 5,500 customers. However, a storm Sunday afternoon knocked out power to about 10,000 additional customers.

The outages are widespread, although Sunday’s storm hit the west side of Lansing and Delta Township particularly hard.

BWL crews remain working around the clock to restore power to affected homes and businesses.

Customers can report a downed power line by calling 371-6314 or 371-6000. Residents are warned not to go near downed power lines.

Sunday’s high winds also caused the loss of a cooling tower at the BWL’s Eckert Power Station. Eckert has five cooling towers, which are used to cool water from the Grand River before it is returned to the river. The water is used to condense steam that is used for electrical generation.

The winds ripped the cooling tower from its moorings. A second cooling sustained serious damage as well. The loss of the cooling tower does not affect the Eckert station’s ability to generate electricity.

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