More Than 1,000 East Lansing BWL Customers Without Power, Including Two Elementary Schools
More than a thousand Lansing Board of Water and Light customers on the western edge of East Lansing — including Robert L. Green and Glencairn Elementary Schools — are without power due to a damaged electrical pole.
An ELi reader wrote in to advise that those two elementary schools had lost power and heat and were closing early. The reader also noted that parents were being asked to call to release their children from school early.
The main office secretary at Robert L. Green Elementary confirmed as much in a brief phone call on Friday afternoon as she dealt with a flurry of calls from parents. The main office phone at Glencairn Elementary went to voicemail, presumably because of a similar onslaught of calls. ELi has reached out to East Lansing Public Schools Superintendent Dori Leyko for more information and will update this story as necessary.
ELi has also contacted BWL for more information on the outage and the expected timeline of the repairs and power restoration. You can also find more information about the outage on the BWL site or by looking at the utility’s outage map.
A Nixle public safety alert sent out late on Friday morning advised to “avoid or expect delays on Saginaw St near Harrison Rd. ELPD & ELFD are assisting the BWL with an electrical pole that was damaged as a result of an unknown utility issue.”
An additional alert was sent out at 12:46 p.m. and noted BWL crews were on scene and the road closure on Saginaw Street to the west of Harrison Road would continue until at least 2 p.m. At 1:56 p.m., a third alert stated that “east bound traffic is open now, west bound traffic is limited to one lane and the traffic signals are out, so police are directing traffic on Saginaw.”
East Lansing Police Lieutenant Chad Pride told ELi via email on Friday afternoon that “we did receive a report of a couple power outages at the local schools. Traffic on W. Saginaw near Harrison is moving slowly, if motorists avoid that area it would assist BWL with getting their problem fixed.”
One ELi reader noted in a Facebook comment that power had been out on Northlawn Avenue “since before noon.”
This post will be updated with additional information as we receive it.