A fierce winter storm that brought a White Christmas to many northerners also delivered a dark Christmas for thousands of others who lost power in Michigan, Maine, Vermont and New York State.
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses remained without power in parts of central and northeastern U.S. after a weekend ice and snowstorm rolled across the region
Brad Hoving, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Mich., said most people were without power in some counties between Grand Rapids and Lansing, Mich. Some may not have electricity until Wednesday or even Thursday, he said.
“It’s a big deal,” Hoving said. “It’s Christmas and we’ve just had a major ice storm,” with trees toppling over and ice-covered power lines.
In Michigan, more than 230,000 electric customers – including 49,000 in metro Detroit – were still blacked out in the state’s lower peninsula Tuesday evening, the Detroit Free Press reported, quoting local energy providers.
“This is our largest Christmas-week storm in our 126-year history, and it’s our largest ice storm in the last 10 years,” Consumers Energy spokeswoman Debra Dodd said. “We are working as hard as we can to get people back on. We recognize that this is a terrible time for this to happen.”
