Lansing state office buildings closed due to heat problem

LANSING — The state of Michigan sent most of its Lansing employees home Wednesday morning after a steam problem shut down heat to the buildings.

Despite initial reports that the Capitol was closed, access remained open to the public Wednesday morning. The House Appropriations Committee convened its meeting at 9 a.m. in the Capitol, though full House and Senate sessions, along with most committee hearings, were canceled.

The steam and heat were restored Wednesday afternoon and state employees were expected to return to work Thursday.

Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, said all state employees in DTMB-managed buildings in Lansing were affected. The state also leases office buildings in Lansing and officials were checking on those individually to see whether they had heat and employees could work, he said.

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The Lansing Board of Water & Light was "working to restore steam production at the REO Cogeneration Plant following an outage that began around 1 a.m." Wednesday, the utility said in a news release.

The BWL news release said about 200 downtown customers were without steam heat. The cause of the outage was under investigation the release said.

A state office building exception was the Michigan Lottery building in Lansing, which remained open.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.