Power restored in Bay County after car-pole crash
BAY COUNTY, MI -- Power has been restored for about 150 Consumers Energy customers in Bay County following a violent car crash that left two teens hospitalized.
Late Sunday, March 19, Michigan State Police troopers were dispatched to Mackinaw and Linwood roads in Bay County's Kawkawlin Township where they found a car sheared in half after striking a Consumers Energy utility pole. The crash left an 18-year-old female passenger with permanent injuries. The driver, an 18-year-old male, fled on foot before police located him hiding in a shed. Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash.
Teens hospitalized after drunken crash[1]
Earlier in the evening, Consumers Energy experienced an outage unrelated to the crash. There was equipment failure on a 46,000 volt line that serves Bay County, said Roger Morgenstern, a spokesperson for Consumers. More than 2,600 customers were impacted from 6:25 p.m. to 7:35 p.m., Morgenstern said.
"The exact cause is still being investigated, but we were able to isolate the problem relatively quickly," he said.
The outage came in the middle of a tight matchup between Michigan State University and the University of Kansas in the NCAA March Madness Men's Div. I Basketball Tournament. The No. 1 Jayhawks went on to defeat the No. 9 Spartans 90-70.
That outage also affected Bay City Electric, Light & Power customers on Bay City's West Side, said Todd Denham, superintendent for the utility.
The city's Henry Street substation, which is fed by Consumers, malfunctioned, affecting about 2,000 customers, Denham said. Power was restored at about 8 p.m., he said.
References
- ^ Teens hospitalized after drunken crash (www.mlive.com)
