Thousands of DTE customers, many in Oakland County, without power Wednesday morning

Over 6,500 DTE customers were without power at some point on Wednesday morning, a situation that led to school closings. 

The biggest pocket of outages was in Commerce Township in Oakland County, where wind damage led to about several thousand customers losing power. Restoration was expected by the end of the day on Wednesday, according to the DTE outage map. There also were scattered outages in Livingston County, including about 500 people whom DTE said lost power due to tree damage

Several Oakland County schools have posted closings for Wednesday, including Walled Lake Central High and Walled Lake Northern High in the Walled Lake Consolidated School District. Decisions will be made later in the day about after-school events and activities. 

While Michigan schools are allowed to take days off for snowstorms and other emergencies, once a district or school bumps up against the mandatory minimum number of school days for the year, they must schedule make-up time as some needed to last year. 

The Brighton city offices in Livingston County also had no power on Wednesday, city officials said. The Brighton Police Department said its phone service was affected by the outage but residents could still call 911 for an emergency or get a message to their department via Livingston County Central Dispatch. 

Power outages and food safety

If you do 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.