Presque Isle Electric and Gas Co-op told WCMU they are working on having a full power restoration timeline in northern rural Michigan by Wednesday.
After historic ice storms in northern Michigan, local power companies are still working to get thousands of people back online.
As of this afternoon there are still over 11,000 Great Lakes Energy customers offline. PIE&G say they have over 10,000 offline.
Despite the numbers, both energy companies say the majority of their customers have been restored. PIE&G says 68% of customers are online and GLE says 89% are back online. Over 2,100 broken poles have been replaced, according to Allan Berg, the CEO and president of PIE&G.
“We expect to be releasing some more information to help answer that question later today,” Berg said. “I think we have a great timeline that we can share, to give people folks a little better idea of how much more time we're looking at.”
As for why the process has been so complex, Berg said the electric system sustained major damage.
“Power flows from the central nerve and it goes out to people's homes. The closer you are to the central nerve, the faster your power is restored. The farther you are, the longer it takes,” he said. “Every time we hit a broken pole; the flow stops. We must fix that pole before we go to the next one to keep that flowing all the way to the end of every one of these circuits."
