Short power outage impacts schools Wednesday

A downed wire left 7,500 Consumers Energy customers in Branch and St. Joseph counties without power for just over an hour Wednesday morning.

CE spokesperson Brian Wheeler said all the customers were back in service by 8 a.m.

"We were grateful to get power back on as quickly as we did," he said.

Lights began flickering at 6:45 a.m. before going out.

The affected area stretched from just east of the Branch County Memorial Airport to the west and south of Barnhard Road to the state line.

The blackout covered parts of Batavia, Sherwood, and Matteson townships in Branch County. All power was out in Gilead, Bethel, Bronson, and Noble townships.

In St. Joseph County, the area south of M-60 and east of M-66 served by Consumers also lost power.

The cities of Bronson, Burr Oak, and Colon had no power.

Colon Schools canceled classes. Students will be back on Thursday and Friday before Christmas break.

Burr Oak and Bronson called a two-hour delay.

Emergency services reported no significant problems in either county.

The downed line "caused a cascading effect," taking out four primary service areas in the two counties, Wheeler said. Wheeler said he was not sure why the line failed.

Sunday, a transformer failure took out power for just over 1,000 customers in the Girard and Union City Road areas of Branch County.

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"We work to make the system as reliable as it can," Wheeler said.

With good weather expected into next week, "we hope everyone will have a happy and merry Christmas," he said.

— Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Down line causes power outage for 7,500 Consumers Energy customers