Thousands of Metro Detroit residents might not have power until the weekend, DTE says

Thousands of DTE customers who lost power due to severe weather this week might not have electricity restored until the weekend, the utility company said.

"We're seeing widespread damage," Jerry Tullio, director of field operations for DTE told reporters during a media briefing Friday morning.

There were 243,059 DTE customers without power as of 7:58 a.m. Friday, according to the company's outage map. A note on the DTE website Friday morning said the company expects to have about 65% of impacted customers restored to power by the end of the day Friday, 90% by the end of the day Saturday, and the remainder by the end of the day Sunday. Some of Metro Detroit's schools have announced closures for Friday due to power outages.

The power outages in Metro Detroit resulted from a series of severe weather incidents this week. 

Tullio said the initial round of storms with 70 mph winds on Wednesday affected about 90,000 customers. But the number of outages kept jumping as repeated lines of storms moved through Metro Detroit and jumped as high as 300,000, he said. The most severe weather roared through the region on Thursday afternoon, circumstances that resulted in numerous tornado warnings. 

As a comparison, there were over 168,000 power outages in Metro Detroit in the aftermath of the July 3 severe weather in Southeast Michigan. 

The immediate concern, Tullio said is for people to stay away from downed power lines. The utility company is tracking about 1,000 such reports, and it is quite likely that live wires are tangled amid downed trees and branches. That's in addition to numerous broken utility poles. If downed lines appear to be near someone's home, DTE asks that a call be made to the utility company first.

"Cleanup can wait. There's a lot of tree damage," he told area residents.

In response to questions about a suspected tornado Friday in Detroit, Tullio said the reponse plan is no different from a tornado than for high winds. The utility workers aim to clear safety hazards first, then get infrastructure back on line.

DTE provides electricity to most of Southeast Michigan. The company's storm response so far has included calling in more than 1,000 field workers from out of state.

Power outages and food safety

If you lose power to a refrigerator or freezer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says to keep the doors closed on those appliances. A fully stocked refrigerator can stay cold for about four hours; if the power outage lasts longer, then transfer perishable foods into a cooler stocked with ice. A freezer will keep its temperature for 24 hours if half full, or 48 hours if full. 

The Michigan State University extension service has a list of commonly refrigerated foods and whether they can be saved if the power goes out.

Power outage bill credits

Michigan utility companies are required by law to credit customers $42 a day for expenses related to long-duration power outages. But it takes 2 days or more without power to qualify in most circumstances.

Tullio said there is nothing that DTE customers will need to do to request a bill credit. It will be automatically applied if they qualify.

The eligibility requirements for an automatic power outage credit are as follows: 

• 96 hours during catastrophic conditions, defined as a utility having 10% or more of its customers without power.  
• 48 hours of gray-sky conditions that affect between 1% and 10% of a utility's customers. 
• 16 hours during normal conditions.