In the seven days since a windstorm ripped through Southeast and South Central Michigan, it has been a struggle for those without electricity. As of 6am on Tuesday morning, there were still 7,000 DTE Energy customers without heat and light, many in Washtenaw County.
The utility says yesterday's snow storms and windy conditions hampered efforts to fully restore power, as anticipated. Initially, DTE reported over 800-thousand of its customer went offline in the windstorm and its aftermath. Consumers Energy had nearly 300,00 lose power, but it has since achieved full restoration.
In it's latest update, DTE notes that additional crews are still being called in to help on the remaining jobs where there is significantly damage to overcome. DTE says it will hold a press conference at 10am Tuesday to provide further updates on progress and the work remaining.
Here is the text of the latest update from DTE Energy:
DTE Crews Reduce Outage Numbers by More Than Half from Monday Night
As of 6 a.m. Monday, 7,000 customers affected by last Wednesday’s storm remain without power. Regretfully, the snow and icy road conditions coupled with complicated and time-consuming repairs impeded restoration efforts on Monday.
Due to the complexity and dispersed nature of the remaining outages, additional crews from other utilities continue to be added as they become available.
DTE Energy has restored power to 793,000 of the 800,000 customers impacted by Wednesday’s wind storm.
DTE’s biggest challenge today continues to be the number of jobs with extensive damage. Our restoration process begins by isolating damage to restore as many customers as possible, and then returning to fix the real damage and small pockets of customers.
We’ve had many questions from our customers throughout the restoration process. Click here for the list of common concerns and DTE’s responses: http://empoweringmichigan.com/storm-questions-answered/
