Thousands of Grandville residents woke up to a Memorial Day without electricity on Monday morning. A tap failure took out power to more than 10,800 customers across southwestern Kent County, hitting Wyoming, Grandville, and Byron Township hard.

The outage began shortly before 11 a.m. on May 25, according to the Consumers Energy interactive outage map. By 11:20 a.m., the map showed a dense cluster of outages across the three communities.

What caused the outage

Crews first suspected a problem with a transmission line operated by ITC Michigan. That company confirmed a 138kv electric transmission line experienced an outage around 11 a.m., according to WZZM13.

But the real culprit was closer to the ground. The fault occurred on a piece of Consumers Energy equipment called a tap that connects the ITC line to Consumers Energy substations, according to WOOD TV.

"Consumers Energy and ITC crews were able identify the cause of the large outage in Kent County. The outage was caused by a fault on Consumer's Energy equipment called a tap which connects the ITC line to Consumers Energy substations."

That statement came directly from Consumers Energy, as reported by WZZM13.

Three substations down

The tap failure impacted three substations in the area, according to both WOOD TV and WZZM13.

• By 2:30 p.m., crews had restored power to two of the three substations
• Approximately 5,600 customers remained without power as of 3:30 p.m., according to WOOD TV
• Over 2,000 customers had regained power by 2:15 p.m., according to WZZM13
• All power was restored around 5 p.m., according to the Consumers Energy outage map cited by WOOD TV

Restoration estimates for the remaining customers ranged from 2:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., according to the outage map.

A holiday disrupted

The timing made the outage especially painful. Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, and many families had plans for grilling, swimming, and traveling.

Residents in Grandville and nearby communities sat through the longest Memorial Day weekend heatwave of the season without air conditioning, refrigeration, or the ability to charge phones.

ITC Michigan operates more than 9,100 circuit miles of power transmission lines and 403 substations across the state, according to WZZM13. The company said it was working with Consumers Energy to determine the full cause of the tap failure and complete repairs.

Consumers Energy did not provide a statement on what maintenance or upgrades might prevent a repeat of the outage.

What to expect next

Crews completed repairs and restored power to all affected customers by late Monday afternoon. No further outages in the area were reported Tuesday.

Residents who experienced billing issues or service questions related to the outage were directed to contact Consumers Energy directly.