Cleanup continues two weeks after historic ice storm

Residents in West Michigan are still grappling with the effects of a historic ice storm that downed branches and knocked out power for days.

• Speak up: State wants to hear from people who lost power in storms

Cleanup crews have been deployed in Kalamazoo, Portage, and Kalamazoo Township. 

On Thursday, they were still hard at work. Trimming trees, grinding up debris into wood chips, and patrolling the streets for leftover debris.

• Here we snow again: Another system brings accumulating snow to end the week

The ice storm plagued West Michigan with up to 1/2 inch of ice accumulation and heavy snow during the storm Feb. 22.

At a time, Consumers Energy reported over 200,000 without power. Some were in the dark for days.

When preparing for this storm and its impacts, Consumers Energy referred to similar storms from 2019 and 2013.

“We don’t see this amount of icing very often across our service area... this is really the third time in the past decade that we have seen anything like this," Chris Laird, vice president of electric operations, said.