July 23, 2012 – Earlier this month, PowerStream sent four, three-man crews in four bucket trucks and three pick-up trucks to Michigan, U.S., to assist Consumers Energy in restoring power to thousands of customers who lost electricity when a series of severe thunderstorms swept across the state.

“Although power has been restored to some Consumers Energy customers, a significant number of the more than 111,000 affected, mostly in central and eastern Michigan, are still without service,” reported PowerStream at the time of the outage.

“As one of Ontario’s largest municipally-owned electricity distribution companies, we recognize the importance of being there to assist other utilities when these types of unfortunate events occur,” said Frank Scarpitti, PowerStream chair and mayor of the City of Markham, Ont.

The PowerStream contingent joined more than 500 linemen from Consumers Energy and several other Michigan and out-of-state utilities to help restore Michigan’s power.

According to PowerStream, the electricity distributor has reciprocal agreements in place with other Ontario utilities to provide assistance during significant power outages.

“I am proud of our staff’s quick response to this request for assistance,” added Brian Bentz, PowerStream president and CEO. “It’s not easy to work under such difficult and unfamiliar conditions but they recognize the urgency of the situation and the need to be of assistance, especially given the number of people affected.”