ALPENA POWER COMPANY
401 N. Ninth Ave Alpena, Michigan 49707
For Immediate Release
March 21, 2026 7:00PM
Contact:
Ken Dragiewicz, President and COO
solutions@alpenapower.com
OUTAGE UPDATE
Current Situation
As of 7 pm this evening more than 99% of our customers have been restored leaving about 150 customers without power. All available crews are working to restore outages including assistance from Thunder Bay Tree Service , The City of Lowell, The City of Bay City, City of Sturgis, City of Lansing, Homeworks Tri County Cooperative, Thumb Electric Cooperative, the Hydaker-Wheatlake Company, and Premium Utility Contracting.
Restoration Process
The restoration process is designed to get essential services energized first then the largest number of customers on as quickly as possible. APC’s process consists of five stages:
1. Essential functions such as hospitals, 911, police, fire, water, sewer, etc.
2. Services such as fuel, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.
3. Main feeder and distribution lines
4. Areas with the largest number of customers
5. Restore individual homes.
We are currently in stage 5 in all areas of our service territory.
While we will work all available hours today to restore power, some small pockets of outages in the Ossineke, Spruce, and Hubbard Lake areas will last into Sunday.
What do I do once my Electrical Service is repaired?
Alpena Power strongly recommends you contact a licensed electrician to make any repairs, they have extensive knowledge of the electrical code and can help to expedite materials and required inspections.
Once repairs are completed the electrician will be in contact with the electrical inspector who will provide approval to Alpena Power to reconnect and energize the service.
If you have completed the repairs yourself, you must complete the necessary permits and have an inspection completed before we can reconnect and energize your service.
Who is going to clean up the tree debris in my yard?
During a storm our goal is to restore as many customers as quickly as possible. If we cut a tree off a power line or remove branches that have fallen on a service, we will leave them behind as they are the property owners’ responsibility to clean up.
The City of Alpena has issued a press release regarding tree debris which can be viewed here:
https://www.alpena.mi.us/document_center/Transparency/Brush_03202026.pdf?t=202603200907400
What if Utility crews have damaged my yard?
During restoration, our crew’s focus is safety and restoration. This sometimes results in property damage, such as large ruts in a grass yard. Alpena Power will address the property damage; we just ask that customers wait until the power outage restoration is complete to contact Alpena Power. We can then inspect the property and work with landowners to restore any damage.
How to check on an outage
One tool that can help keep you informed is our webpage outage viewer available at: https://www.alpenapower.com/outage-center/. A customer can zoom into their location and see if their outage has been reported. If you are in a reported area, we have the outage information and will get a crew dispatched as soon as one is available.
What if I need assistance?
If you need assistance, the Alpena Public Schools has created a website which lists resources available. It can be found at:
https://www.alpenaschools.com/page/emergency-resources
Summary
As we near the end of storm recovery, I want to thank our customers for their patience and understanding and the community for their support.
# # #
