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.

DTE plans to give an update on the restoration efforts at 7:45 a.m. Friday morning. CBS News Detroit will livestream the press conference.  

There were 241,193 DTE customers without power as of 6:35 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. 

The storms overnight Wednesday affected well over 250,000 customers. Many of them did not have power restored when another line of intense storms, including numerous tornado warnings, roared through the region on Thursday afternoon. 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. 

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.

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.