Thousands Remain Without Power After Fierce Storms Rip Through Michigan
DETROIT (WWJ) - DTE says about 89,000 homes and businesses remain without service Monday afternoon following hurricane-force winds that ripped across Metro Detroit Friday night.
DTE spokesperson Erica Donerson says this storm was one for the record books and it may be Tuesday or Wednesday before power is fully restored to the area.
"This is the tenth most impactful storm in our company's 111-year history so it really did a lot of damage - the wind gusts - the more than 75 mph - really reeked havoc on our community so we've enlisted the help of 600 linemen from utilities in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York and even Tennessee to help us with the restoration effort," said Donerson.
Teenager Kye Cureton said the scariest part of the outage is at night.
"When the lights are out ... the street lights are on, I don't feel too bad about coming in at night but coming in at 9 o'clock while the power's out is no good. Especially if the phone is dead ... you don't have a reliable charger or anything like that- so I get a little paranoid," she said.
Some customers without power are trying to make the best of their circumstances.
Near the Lodge - where power has been lost since Friday's storm.
"No T.V., no computer, that's about it, you know, food rot, rotten food," laments Otto Cureton.
He just purchased a generator and is kindly sharing it with a neighbor to power their refrigerators. "Shared it with next door so I really didn't put very many electronics on it so everybody that I can get about three or four people on it in the building and I'll get their refrigerators back up," he said.
Jay Hernandez lives on Avery Street near Warren and the Lodge Freeway. He has a tattoo business -- and the outage has impacted his business.
"I can't even tattoo or nothing,"he told WWJ's Laura Bonnell,"so it's like really bad - it's hard for making money now."
He says he's out of business until the power comes back on.
The hardest hit counties are:
Wayne – 53,000
Oakland – 19,000
Macomb – 5,000
Washtenaw – 5,000
DTE Energy has restored power to 250,000 of the 375,000 customers impacted by one of the most damaging storms to hit Southeast Michigan in the past century; 125,000 customers remain without power. [DTE OUTAGE MAP]
The remaining outages are scattered throughout DTE Energy's service territory which is comprised of 2.1 million customers.
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