Michigan’s Upper Peninsula continued to battle power outages caused by a winter storm on Wednesday and now air travel is affected.
High winds knocked out power to thousands of customers throughout the region. A Delta County resident told 19 News she lost electricity early this morning and power had not been restored by 8:30am. At Noon, Poweroutage.com reported 5,434 Delta County customers without power and another 1,963 customers out in Marquette County. In Menominee County, 9,600 customers were without power and another 2,863 customers were off in Dickinson County. Baraga County had 397 outages.
Schools began closing early for the day after the National Weather Service issued Winter Storm Warnings and Blizzard Warnings for counties in the WZMQ-19 viewing area. Among the schools closed on Wednesday was Northern Michigan University. WZMQ received reports of a foot and a half of snow in the West Ishpeming area with more coming down. Gwinn and Champion also report heavy snow.
Officials at Marquette Sawyer Regional Airport confirm power outages has slowed air traffic there. Passenger and freight flights are delayed and as of 1:00pm Wednesday, it was unknown how soon normal traffic would resume.
WZMQ19.com checked in with the Michigan State Police Post at Calumet covering Houghton, Baraga and Keweenaw Counties. A trooper there said they did not have any accidents reported as of 9:00am but roads are slick, and motorists are advised to travel slowly and safely.
In downtown Marquette, the streets were slushy, and snow continued falling early this morning. Private plows were keeping parking areas clear.
For a look at current weather conditions, check out the WZMQ Skycam network here.
Some government and business offices in the region were closed on Wednesday because of the storm. It would be best to call ahead if you plan to visit a business or have an appointment to be sure the agency you intend to visit is open.
