CA, MI, OH, PA: All Suffer August Outages With More Than 1.1M+ Left Powerless

Severe storms brought heavy rain, powerful winds and flooding to many areas of the country the past two weeks. About 500,000 California residents were without power as the remnants of Tropical Storm Hilary caused outages. Meanwhile more than 600,000 residents in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania collectively were also left in the dark as storms battered the region.

California utilities companies were working hard to restore power after Hilary blew through SoCal. Not only was the grid compromised, but solar generation plummeted as storm clouds covered much of the state. 

"After moving inland across Southern California late Sunday, moisture associated with Hilary continued streaming northward through the Intermountain West," the US National Weather Service (NWS) said in its Aug. 21 daily discussion.

Several areas in SoCal reached new low temperature marks on Aug. 20 and set daily precipitation marks. Lake Cuyamaca recorded 4.11 inches of rain, breaking a 1984 record, while San Diego saw 1.82 inches of rain, breaking a record from 1906, according to the NWS. In Palm Springs, 3.18 inches of rain fell on Aug. 20, bringing the monthly total to 3.1 inches above normal, according to NWS.

At the peak of the outages, there were roughly 500,000 customers without power, according to utilities. There were more than 51,000 outages across California as of Aug. 21.

The cloud cover from the storm significantly decreased solar-powered generation for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) footprint as most solar facilities are in Southern California.

Solar market share plummeted down to 4.4% of the total fuel mix Aug. 20, a seven-month low, according to CAISO. Thermal, wind and imports each increased about 2 percentage points day by day to fill in the gap.


But all the chaos wasn’t limited to California. Severe storms battered portions of Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania the following week, leaving hundreds of thousands without power across the states.

Early on Friday, there were over 400,000 customers without power in Michigan and over 200,000 without power in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.US (a great site to see an outage map).

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency after the storm resulted in flooding across the greater Detroit metro area.

There was flooding in Wayne County that blocked access to a major airport terminal and inundated Canton businesses and homes, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Thursday started with flooding, widespread power outages, dozens of flight delays and cancellations, and extreme heat. Hail and tornadoes were also in the mix.

"Radar indicates a tornado on the ground near I-96 south of Williamston. Take Cover Now in the Williamston/Webberville areas," Ingham County emergency officials said in an emergency alert just before 9:40 p.m. The warning expired at 10 p.m.

Heavy rain and strong winds moving in from the west pummeled the Lansing region, leaving standing water on many roads and many trees in roadways.

Most of the power outages in Ohio were reported from the northeastern portion of the state. Cuyahoga County had over 55,000 reported outages while Lake County had over 36,000 reported outages. Geauga and Portage counties each had over 23,000 reported outages.

In Pennsylvania, Power Outage US recorded 48,000 power outages in Pennsylvania. Most of the outages were reported from the southwestern portion of the state, with both Allegheny and Fayette counties having over 11,000 reported outages. Washington County also has nearly 9,000 reported outages.

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Brian La Rue | 8/30/2023 9:23:14 AM | 0 comments
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