After a day of intense heat and thunderstorms, more than 300,000 customers in Michigan were left without power on Wednesday morning. In response, one utility company announced it would provide free ice and water to affected residents.
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Published on August 27, 2024
Updated on August 28, 2024, at 9:53 a.m. ET
Early Wednesday, approximately 330,000 customers across Michigan were without power following a day of thunderstorms and extreme heat in the Midwest.
The outages affected customers in about two dozen counties in the state, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. More than 200,000 of those customers get their electricity from DTE Energy, which is based in Detroit. The company attributed the outages to strong storms, saying it had brought in 800 extra workers to help fix the grid.
Consumers Energy, with over 100,000 customers affected by power outages, announced it would provide free ice and water in Midland County, one of the hardest-hit areas in the state.
According to the National Weather Service, over eight million people in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana were under a severe thunderstorm watch as storms swept through the region on Tuesday night. The advisory included the Chicago area.
On Tuesday morning, the Minnesota State Fair postponed its opening by two hours to evaluate damage caused by heavy wind and rain.
The region has been enduring a severe heat wave, which is expected to persist for a few more days. According to a Weather Service advisory on Tuesday, high temperatures were projected to be 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in parts of the Midwest, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic.
Due to the extreme heat, several Michigan school districts closed early on Tuesday.
Christine Hauser contributed to this report.