Storm Restoration Update: Progress, Challenges & Our Gratitude

 

Here we are—Monday morning—and our crews, contractors, mutual aid partners, and tree crews have been working tirelessly through the weekend, clearing trees and repairing lines. Despite their hard work, this is an unprecedented event with widespread destruction across our system. As soon as progress is made, additional damage occurs due to the continued strain of ice on trees, poles, and lines. Many substations remain without power, which adds complexity and time to the restoration process. Please be prepared for a multi-day outage event as efforts continue.

 

Since the storm began, power has been restored to over 56,000 members.

Just over 45,000 Great Lakes Energy (GLE) members remain without power this morning across 15 of our 26 counties.

Unfortunately, a new storm system hit our southern territory late yesterday, causing additional damage and compounding restoration challenges.

 

Multiple outages are occurring at the same locations due to poor weather.

Hundreds of broken poles have already been identified, with many areas still unreachable.

Downed wires, fallen trees, and impassable roads continue to hamper progress.

Replacing poles takes several hours per pole, contributing to the extended timeline.

 

Thank you for your support

Through all of this, we want to take a moment to say thank you. Your patience, gratitude, kind words, prayers, and positive vibes mean so much to our crews and staff. We know how difficult and scary it can be to go without power, and we deeply appreciate your continued understanding as we work to restore service safely.

 

Warming Centers: We’ll continue to update our warming centers post—please check for locations. If you travel, please be careful!

Restoration efforts will continue all week, and we’re committed to bringing everyone back online as safely and quickly as possible. Thank you for standing with us through this challenging time. We’re in this together!