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The power's still out in many Southwest Michigan homes after Wednesday's ice storm

Close up view of ice and water on a glass window, with blurred view of buildings in the background
Sehvilla Mann
/
WMUK
Ice forms on the windows of a walkway at Western Michigan University, Weds. Feb. 22, 2023 around 1 p.m.

Thursday afternoon, authorities warned people to continue to watch out for downed power lines.

This post has been updated.

The ice did not stick around long, but it did plenty of damage while it was here.

Hundreds of thousands of customers across southern Lower Michigan still did not have power Thursday evening. And some streets were still blocked by debris after the ice storm that blew in Wednesday. In Kalamazoo, much of the ice itself vanished by Thursday afternoon.

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Consumers Energy's outage map indicated about 10 percent of the utility's customers remained without power. The outages were scattered across the southern end of Consumers' service area, with Kalamazoo, Van Buren and Calhoun counties among the hardest-hit.

Indiana-Michigan Power reported about 800 customer outages, and Midwest Energy and Communications reportedabout 6 percent of its customers were without power, down from 14 percent around noon.

Western Michigan University closed Thursday, telling students and non-essential staff to avoid travel as much as possible, due to the danger of falling tree limbs. News Channel 3 has a list of closings and cancellations.

Utilities say downed power lines remain a hazard, and reminded people not to touch objects or structures such as fences that are touching a live wire.

MLive reports Paw Paw firefighter Ethan Quillen died Wednesday after he was struck by a falling power line. Quillen was responding to a call about storm damage in Almena Township.