GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Many of the people who lost power this week across Michigan may be eligible for a credit from Consumers Energy for those who have been without electricity for five days or more.

The credit is a requirement of the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) rules for Service Quality and Reliability Standards.

After an ice storm moved across the state the night of Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, tens of thousands of customers were left without power.

Thursday morning, Dec. 26, 86,500 Consumers Energy customers statewide were still without power, said

Debra Dodd, Consumers spokeswoman.

Consumers Energy customers who have been without power for five days can apply for a $25 credit

.

"Certainly, there will be a lot of our customers that would apply and meet the requirements of this," Dodd said. "This has certainly been a catastrophic storm for us. ...

In all,

we've

had 348,000 outages, more than 19 percent of our 1.8 million Consumers costumer base."

The credit applies if a utility fails to restore service after 120 hours, or five day, during catastrophic conditions. A catastrophic condition is defined as an event

that results in an official state of emergency or an event resulting in an interruption for 10 percent or more of a utility’s customers.

The state has had more than 10 percent of electricity customers affected by the storm, Dodd said. Genesee County has been hit the hardest. At its peak, more than 42 percent of customers in the county were affected, she said.

As of Thursday morning, 15.8 percent of the company's customers were still affected in Genesee County, she said.

An additional 180 utility workers from Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri were en route to the Flint area. They will join more than 560 field workers already on the job across Genesee County.

Dodd said

the best method to apply for the credit is online. Residents enter their address and account information and then it's verified that they were without power for the correct amount of time to receive the credit. An energy credit would then be applied to the account.

"We've got to get through the storm first, obviously, but then we will staff accordingly to get through the credit (applications)," Dodd said. "Mother nature not only dealt us the initial blow with the ice storm but continued cold temperatures have not allowed the ice to melt. … It truly has been a catastrophic storm for us."

In fact, in the 125 years of the company, there haven't been outages this bad during the week of Christmas, she said.

Jennifer Halicek and her family have been without power in Goodrich since around 10 a.m. Sunday morning. Christmas was spent opening presents with the light of candles, fireplace and a flashlight.

Although she knows crews are working hard to restore power, it's been frustrating, said Halicek, 40.

She just recently heard of the credit and plans to apply if her power doesn't come back by Friday morning. But having power back before Christmas would have been better, Halicek said.

"It feels like we didn't even have Christmas. ... I thought for sure Consumers would restore it by Christmas Eve. I honestly thought in my head we would have power on Christmas Eve. I really didn't think we would have Christmas without power," Halicek said. "If they are offering a credit, I will apply for it."