375,000 DTE Energy customers without electricity after Saturday storms
WWJ – Cleanup and power recovery are underway after the rash of storms and big winds knocked out thousands of Michiganders.
About 375,000 homes and businesses in southeast Michigan were in the dark Sunday morning, according to an update from DTE Energy at 10am, consumer energy says that 121,000 of their customers were out of power, making nearly half a million without power across the state .
DTE says the winds that allegedly reached up to 70 mph in some areas brought down around 1100 power lines across the area.
Officials say they are looking at a multi-day project to restore the power of the whole area. About 800 out-of-state workers have been summoned to assist with the restoration work.
"The outbreaks are really spread throughout the service area," says DTE senior communications strategist Cynthia Hecht to WWJ. "Howell is probably one of the hardest hit areas, and everything around the I-275 corridor in Western Wayne County was also hit hard."
Hecht says this is the worst storm area seen this year and in the form of eruptions, this is the worst since the windmill in March 201[ads1]7.
Video sent to WWJ shows the high winds that strike through a graduation party in Macomb Township Saturday afternoon.
This scene would evolve when the storms swept through a party in Macomb Twp yesterday – 360K without power now. Set to WWJ News Radio for updates: https://t.co/Kc7uBKqXpA pic.twitter.com/aYbibPd5ps
– WWJ950 (@ WWJ950) July 21, 2019
Thousands lost power on Friday And Hecht says DTE has restored power to 60,000, but Saturday's storms made it difficult.
DTE says crews work around the clock to restore power to the area, but there were no recovery estimates available. Check the DTE withdrawal map for the latest updates.
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