The literal light is at the end of the tunnel for Midwest Energy Coop. customers and the crews dispatched to restore their service.

Nearly 48 hours after severe storms blew through southwest Michigan, line crews have been assigned to all remaining outages, and cooperative officials said they believe all service should be restored by midnight Wednesday.

In the aftermath of the storm, which blew through overnight Monday, more than 7,000 customers were without power. The storm was very damaging, breaking poles and downing trees and wire all over southwest Michigan.

“This is some of the most significant damage we have seen in years,” reports Terry Rubenthaler, vice president of engineering. “The severity of the damage made restoration efforts very time consuming. We were not only restoring service, but literally rebuilding portions of the system.”

Rubenthaler expects all service to be restored tonight. Customers remaining without power after Midnight are encouraged to contact the cooperative at (800) 492-5989.

Midwest Energy Cooperative is a member-owned electric utility providing electric distribution and an assortment of energy-related programs and services to more than 35,000 customers in 11 counties in southern Michigan and northern Indiana and Ohio.