Some Metro Detroit DTE customers lose power amid extreme heat wave
TAYLOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - The generators were out Tuesday, and the sun was shining, beating down on the thousands of people suffering through this heat wave in Southeast Michigan.
A neighborhood in Taylor had been without power since Monday afternoon before services were restored early Tuesday afternoon. DTE Energy says the cause of the outage was an equipment issue.
Neighbors did what they could to stay cool, including using generators.
One Taylor neighborhood had been without power since around 6 p.m. Monday.
"Just being without power is a pretty bad feeling, and what's a bad feeling is when they keep telling you it's going to be fixed in a couple hours, but they keep adding a couple hours and adding a couple hours," said Taylor resident Joe White. "It's kind of frustrating."
White said it's unfortunate they dealt with the outage since he couldn't use his CPAP machine and his wife has COPD. He used a generator to power his roughly 800-square-foot home.
Robbie Dei lives across the street from White. She said she was more worried about the health of her pets, guinea pigs, dogs and cats.
Oh, we are dying," said Dei. "We can't even run our fans. They are on, but they are barely moving around circulating any air. It's horrible. This is the worst time for the power to go out. I'm like, you pick the one time we have a heat wave going on. It's horrible."
DTE says technicians are on standby and ready to help at a moment's notice.
"We are prepping our people to get themselves ready to work extra hours, longer hours too, and help with the outages and address them as quickly as we can," said Jason Kupser, a manager with the DTE Energy Efficient Department.