High winds sweep area again; power outages close SL schools
Wed, Oct 7, 2009 
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BY BECKY VARGO
bvargo@grandhaventribune.com
Spring Lake Public Schools Superintendent Dennis Furton was busy this morning at Spring Lake Middle School telling parents who missed announcements on local radio and television stations that school was closed for the day.
"There's no power," he explained to one parent who drove up to him at 7:40 a.m.
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Furton said the power apparently went out in the area around midnight and he was notified about 4 a.m. today.
"Power is out at the corner of Prospect and River," he said this morning. "There's a line down and we don't know when they'll have power back up."
Spring Lake/Ferrysburg Police said they had a report of a blown transformer on Prospect Street, between Exchange and River streets, overnight.
The original notification was for a two-hour delay. By 7:30 a.m., SLPS officials made the announcement that the district's schools would be closed for the day.
High winds again blew across Lake Michigan late Wednesday night and this morning, having the most impact on the immediate Lakeshore. Trained spotters reported gusts as high as 62 mph near South Haven in Van Buren County at 9:15 and around 10 p.m. Tuesday, 62 mph near Muskegon at 10:10 Tuesday night, and 55 mph in Ottawa County's Tallmadge Township at 12:05 a.m. today.
The wind storm comes just one week after gale-force winds whipped up waves as high as 18 feet along the West Michigan Lakeshore.
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Furton said the power outage today only affected a three- to four-block area of the village; but "unfortunately" that encompassed Holmes Elementary, Spring Lake Intermediate and Spring Lake Middle schools. And when Spring Lake Public Schools are closed, St. Mary's Parish School in Spring Lake also closes.
Although the district's other two schools — Spring Lake High School and Jeffers Elementary School — did have power, Furton said it was a logistical issue to try to operate half of the schools "when you are a district our size," thus the decision to close all of the schools. He said they were planning to hold after-school sport and homecoming events today as scheduled.
Lakeshore Baptist Academy in Grand Haven Township posted a two-hour delay this morning and later decided to close for the day. Administrative Assistant Angie Wilson said they were experiencing a strange situation where part of the school had power and part of it did not.
Wilson said the neighborhood surrounding the school off Lakeshore Drive was in a similar situation — some homes had power this morning and some did not. She said they were told by Consumers Energy that the power situation would be fixed anytime "between now and midnight" tonight.
The only other school in the area affected by the wind storm was the Ottawa Area Center near Zeeland, which also closed today due to a power outage.
About 104,000 Michigan utility customers were without power early today after wind gusts of more than 60 mph battered parts of the state.
Grand Haven Township Fire Rescue responded to nine reports overnight of power lines down, and arching and sparking. Several trees and branches also came down in the township, Fire Chief Tom Gerencer said, but there were no major incidents.
Consumers Energy spokesman Timothy Pietryga said 50,000 of the Jackson-based utility's customers were without power in the western and northwestern parts of the state. Pietryga said outages include 9,600 customers in Kent County, 6,200 in Muskegon County, 6,500 in Ottawa County and 3,700 in Allegan County.
DTE Energy Co. spokesman Scott Simons said this morning that about 54,000 southeast Michigan customers are blacked out, including 22,000 in Oakland County, 19,000 in Wayne County and 5,000 in Macomb County.
DTE and CMS officials did not estimate when power would be restored.
The Grand Haven Board of Light & Power has been kept busy this morning restoring several scattered small outages in the Tri-Cities area, all the result of wind-blown trees and limbs falling on power lines, BLP spokeswoman Renee Molyneux said. The BLP had to shut off power to about 150 customers in the Stickney Ridge neighborhood of Grand Haven between 2 and 3 a.m. to repair lines brought down by wind-blown trees.
Damaging winds have left 1,653 Great Lakes Energy members without power this morning throughout the cooperative's 26-county service area in Michigan. As of 9 a.m. today, that included seven members in rural Ottawa County.
A wind advisory was scheduled to be lifted late this morning for much of Lower Michigan.
The forecast for the Grand Haven area today called for partly sunny skies and a high near 58, with winds decreasing to 16-25 mph this afternoon and evening.
Tribune writers Mark Brooky and Brian Keilen, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
