Indiana Michigan Power crews continue to work amid the heat and humidity and have restored power to more than 55% of the 13,000 customers impacted from Tuesday’s severe storms. As of 3:30 p.m., approximately 5,500 customers remain without service.
We are getting a better look at the damage the heavy rain, frequent lightning and high winds caused – especially in the South Bend and Buchanan areas. Damage assessors so far have discovered more than 50 broken or damaged power poles, 10 damaged transformers and 114 spans of downed wire, several large trees uprooted and numerous tree branches littered roadways.
Additional crews from Ohio are traveling to southwest Michigan to assist with restoration efforts. They will join the more than 600 workers from Fort Wayne, Muncie, Marion, South Bend, Elkhart, Buchanan, Benton Harbor and Three Rivers crews and our contractors to work through the evening to safely restore power. With the hot and humid conditions – crews will take frequent hydration breaks.
Customers should be cautious while cleaning up storm debris. Fallen limbs and other debris can hide downed power lines, and a downed line may be touching a fence out of line of sight.
I&M anticipates having power restored to nearly all customers tonight around 10 p.m.
South Bend Area
1,920
10:00 p.m.
Buchanan Area
3,600
10:00 p.m.
Customers can subscribe to I&M outage text or emails alerts to receive specific information about outages affecting their accounts at IndianaMichiganPower.com/Alerts. A snapshot view of current outages is available at www.IndianaMichiganPower.com/OutageMap. Customers can monitor their account and report outages with I&M’s Mobile App.
