4,000 DTE Customers Remain Without Power Nearly A Week After Damaging Winds
FARMINGTON (WWJ) - Power has now been restored to all but one percent of the hundreds of thousands of DTE Energy customers who lost service last week.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, 4,000 customers affected by last Wednesday's windstorm remain without power. DTE says snow and icy road conditions coupled with complicated and time-consuming repairs impeded restoration efforts on Monday.
Some of the outages are more complex or are in hard-to-reach areas adding to the time and manpower necessary, according to DTE.
For those frustrated residents and businesses who have gone without power for days, DTE spokesperson Pete Turnes says they hear you.
"It's a very difficult thing to explain, mostly because people are frustrated. Anybody whose been out of power this long deserves to be frustrated and we grant them that," said Turnes. "We just want to assure them that we're doing everything we can to get our crews out and address the problems that they have."
In Dearborn Heights, Tuesday morning, police were doing welfare checks at a mobile home park still in the dark.
Resident Keven O'Connor said the neglected neighborhood is home to many elderly residents.
"We feel abandoned here," he told WWJ's Charlie Langton. "You know, the third world used to be miles away but now I feel like I'm on the wrong side on the tracks. I'm telling you, we are just left out!"
Dorothy Mechkowski said water has been off for some residents due to the outage and there are some plumbing problems.
"All people's bathrooms have been flooded; we've gotta get this fixed," she told Langton. "Can you help us?"
At the peak, 800,000 homes and businesses were in the dark, making for "the largest weather event in DTE Energy history." The high winds caused extensive tree damage, resulting in more than 9,000 reported downed power lines and hundreds of downed trees.
To report and outage or downed line to DTE, call 800-477-4747.
