Consumers logs 2,600 more outages, Lennon to Perry to Elsie

A second round of outage entries on Consumers Energy's map put roughly 2,600 more Shiawassee County customers in the dark after last week's storm line — about 735 near Lennon, 658 near Perry across three separate breaks, 525 near Bancroft across two, 394 near Laingsburg, 167 near Elsie and 152 near Corunna. Every one of them lists the cause as the same two words: storm damage.

The map gave some of those households a time to plan around and left others with nothing. The Lennon entry carried an estimated restoration of 5:30 p.m. The Elsie entry said 9:15 a.m. A 154-customer break near Bancroft and a 38-customer break near Perry were both pushed to 11 p.m. Five of the nine entries — including the 399-customer Perry outage, the 394-customer Laingsburg outage, the 371-customer Bancroft outage and the 152-customer Corunna outage — carried no estimated restoration time at all.

This is the second time in four days that the utility has posted multiple breaks on the same handful of communities without explaining them. The Current reported Sept. 4 that Thursday's severe thunderstorm, with 60 mph gusts and penny-size hail, knocked out power to about 3,300 customers in at least 10 Shiawassee communities, including 735 near Lennon and five separate breaks around Laingsburg. On Sept. 6 we reported that two of those five Laingsburg entries never carried a restoration estimate, and that Consumers Energy has not said when those customers came back on.

The repetition is itself unresolved. The 735-customer Lennon figure in this batch matches the Lennon figure the map showed after Thursday's storm, and Perry, Bancroft and Laingsburg each appear more than once within hours. Consumers Energy's public map does not say whether a repeated entry is a new break on the same circuit, a re-listing of the same customers, or a restoration that failed. We have asked. The utility has not answered.

What the company has not produced, four days on, is the basic accounting: how many Shiawassee County customers lost power in total, what failed, when the last customer was restored, and whether any repairs or upgrades are planned on the circuits that broke in the same places twice. Those questions have been open on this desk since Sept. 6.

On the DTE side of the same weather, WNEM reported that more than a thousand DTE customers lost power after severe thunderstorms moved through the Thumb region Wednesday evening — "Over a thousand DTE customers are without power after severe thunderstorms moved through the Thumb region Wednesday evening," the outlet reported. That figure is WNEM's and covers the Thumb, not Shiawassee County. The Current has not independently confirmed it and does not know how many, if any, of those customers are here.

If you are on one of these circuits, the utility's outage map at consumersenergy.com/outagemap is where restoration estimates are posted and updated, and where outages can be reported.

What happens next: The Current has asked Consumers Energy for a confirmed county-wide customer count from the Sept. 3 storm line, the time the last Shiawassee County customer was restored, an explanation of what "storm damage" means on each of these circuits, and whether the repeated Lennon, Perry, Bancroft and Laingsburg entries represent new breaks or re-listings. We will publish the answers when we get them, and we will keep asking until we do.