More than 131,000 without power as major storm hits northern Michigan

Max Bryan, The Detroit News on Mar 16, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — More than 2.5% of electrical customers in Michigan were without power Monday morning as winter storms pummeled the northern half of the state and the Upper Peninsula.

The state as of 9:25 a.m. had more than 131,000 power outages recorded. Consumers Energy, which serves much of lower Michigan outside of the eastern side of the state, had the most outages of any utility company with more than 90,000, according to poweroutage.com.

Consumers announced early Monday that it was deploying more than 480 crews "to assess damage and start restoring power" following the winter storm that hit northern Michigan overnight Sunday. Crews will work around the clock in 16-hour shifts to respond to outages, according to a news release.

Norm Kapala, one of Consumers' officers in charge for restoration, said in the release that the storm has had a significant impact "particularly from Cadillac to Alpena."

"We will work closely with community leaders to ensure we’re serving our communities and restoring power as soon as we can do so safely," Kapala said.

Consumers crews already restored power to more than 160,000 customers after an initial round of winter storms hit the state Friday, the release said.

----------