Power restored to Elkhart County customers
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A large tree near the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Benham Avenue lies on its side at the base of the water tower June 29, 2012. (Truth Photo By J. Tyler Klassen)

Anthony Trotter looks at a tree that fell on his mother’s house during the storm on Friday.
Truth Photo By Evey Wilson


Indiana Michigan Power reported Saturday afternoon that 312 electricity customers here remained without power, but as of Saturday evening, none remained without, according to an outage map on the company’s website. Likewise, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. crews had restored power to all its impacted electricity customers in the county, according to its outage map.
Benham Avenue was blocked to traffic for part of Saturday south of the downtown area between Martin Luther King Drive and Park Avenue, though it later opened. Arvis Dawson, assistant to Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore, said that and other temporary road closures stemmed from downed power lines that had to be reconnected.
City forestry crews in Elkhart, meanwhile, worked to remove downed branches, trees even, and clear the city’s streets. “We’ve got entire trees. We’ve got humongous branches,” said Dawson.
The central and western sections of Elkhart seemed to be hardest hit, according to Dawson. Friday’s storm produced winds of up to 61 mph in Elkhart County, according to I&M spokesman Dave Mayne, downing trees, branches and power lines, leading to the outages.
Though Elkhart County is apparently back on the grid, that wasn’t the case in other Indiana counties. Late Saturday night, I&M reported that 86,255 customers, most in Allen County, remained without electricty. Winds reached 91 mph in Fort Wayne.
NIPSCO reported that 6,000 were without power, notably in Warsaw and Culver.At its peak, Friday’s storm had left 39,000 NIPSCO customers across the northern third of Indiana without power.












