Perry, Bancroft, Laingsburg back on Consumers outage map again

Consumers Energy's outage map logged another round of Shiawassee County entries this week, and they land on the same four communities that have been cycling on and off the map since Thursday's storm line: Perry, Bancroft, Laingsburg and Morrice.

The entries, as posted on the utility's map: about 221 customers near Perry, blamed on storm damage, with no restoration estimate listed; about 95 near Perry, storm damage, no estimate; about 38 near Perry, storm damage, restoration estimated at 11 p.m.; about 154 near Bancroft, storm damage, 11 p.m.; about 154 near Bancroft, listed instead as an equipment issue, also 11 p.m.; about 98 near Laingsburg, storm damage, 11 a.m.; about 67 near Laingsburg, equipment issue, 11 p.m.; and about 33 near Morrice, storm damage, 3:30 p.m.

Added up at face value, that is roughly 860 customers. But the two Bancroft entries carry the identical customer count — 154 — under two different causes, and the Perry and Laingsburg entries repeat patterns the map has shown for days. Duplicate counts of that kind suggest the same customers being re-listed rather than eight separate new breaks. Consumers Energy's map does not say which it is.

This is now the fourth straight round of county outage postings The Current has covered. We reported Sept. 4 that a severe thunderstorm with 60 mph gusts cut power to about 3,300 customers in at least 10 Shiawassee County communities. On Sept. 5, the map showed 683 more customers out near Byron and Lennon with the cause given only as an equipment issue. On Sept. 6, five separate breaks were listed around Laingsburg alone. On Sept. 7, nine more storm-damage entries covering about 2,600 customers ran from Lennon to Perry to Elsie, several with no restoration estimate at all.

What has not appeared in any of it is an explanation. Consumers Energy has not published a county-wide total of Shiawassee County customers who lost power in the Sept. 3 storm, has not said what specifically failed on any of these circuits beyond the words "storm damage" and "equipment issue," and has not said when the last county customer was restored. The questions this desk raised on Sept. 5, 6 and 7 remain unanswered.

The distinction matters to the households on these lines. If these are re-listings, the outages are a records problem. If they are new breaks, the same neighborhoods around Perry, Bancroft, Laingsburg and Morrice have lost power repeatedly in under a week, and the reason is on equipment the utility owns.

Three of the eight entries carry no estimated restoration time. On the map, an outage without an estimate typically means crews have not yet assessed the damage well enough to give one.

What happens next: The Current has open questions with Consumers Energy on what failed on these circuits, whether the repeated Perry, Bancroft and Laingsburg entries are new breaks or the same customers re-listed, when the last county customer came back on, and whether any repair or upgrade is planned on lines that have now failed several times in a week. We will report the answers when we get them. Customers can check the map and report an outage at consumersenergy.com/outagemap.