Lights Are Out Downtown Grand Rapids
GRAND RAPIDS (WWJ) - Much of downtown Grand Rapids spent Tuesday morning in the dark, as a major power outage has left many buildings, hotels and the police station without electrical service.
John Bry is a reporter with WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids.
"We looked outside the window and the whole downtown was dark. When I say the whole downtown I mean the major high-rise hotels, the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, the J.W. Marriot, Grand Valley State University campus across the river, there was nothing lit up except for the city street lights which are on a separate circuit entirely," Bry said.
Consumers Energy, the city's electrical provider, said the outage occurred just before 5 am Tuesday and was blamed on an equipment failure at a substation.
"Consumers Energy told us that they had a substation go down and the spokeswoman originally said only 300 customers and I had to point out to her that only 300 customers in this case was affecting thousands of people because it was well, all the major downtown high rises, all the major downtown office buildings," Bry said.
Consumers Energy hopes to have all the power back on by late Tuesday morning.
