By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
Maria Wardell lost power at her Groveland Township home during Monday’s storms at 6:07 p.m., along with over 260,000 other DTE customers. And like many other DTE customers in southeast Michigan, she’s frustrated.
“The power outage requires us to buy fuel for the generator, which impacts the budget,” said Wardell during an interview with The Citizen on Tuesday. “I was going to work from home today, but with no power or internet, it is impossible.”
According to the National Weather Service and their White Lake radar station, area residents were impacted as a squall line raced across southern lower Michigan during the afternoon and evening of Aug. 29, leaving widespread wind damage in its path. This line of storms developed ahead of a cold front that encountered a warm, muggy, and unstable atmosphere over Southeast Michigan. Gusts of 60 to 75 mph were responsible for damage to trees, power lines, and property and left over 375,000 customers without power.
Like many residents of Groveland, Brandon and Ortonville, Wardell also has a well to supply water to her home, which means that if there is no power, there is no running water.
“The well, air conditioning and water heater require power, but the generator can only sustain the well,” she said.
On Tuesday morning, DTE reported that they were securing more than 3,300 downed power lines, which were the result of the severe storms and 70 mph winds. It was expected that 80 percent of customers impacted by the storms would have power back by the end of day Thursday. As of press time, 103,683 customers were still without power.
In comparison, Consumers Energy, which services Genesee County for electric, restored more than 60,000 customers on Tuesday, and had a goal of restoring roughly half of the 175,000 customers without power in their service area by the end of day Tuesday.
“To prevent outages, underground lines have worked for other companies, but it’s pricey to install,” said Wardell. “Overall, maintaining a decent response time is ideal for the short term. Even shorter term suggestion would be for DTE to have more computer servers to keep the app and phone updated with an estimated restoration, instead of crashing, leaving everyone to wonder.”
Wardell said she was unable to access the DTE Outage map at all, and even when someone checked it for her, there was no estimated restoration time. Most of Groveland and Brandon were restored as of press time, but there were still small sections of power outages throughout the area.
To report and outage or downed power line, visit the DTE energy website at outage.dteenergy.com.