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Thousands still left without power after Friday's storms
Some Metro Detroit residents toughed out the holiday weekend without power following Friday's strong storms that ripped through the area.
HUNTINGTON WOODS, Mich. (FOX 2) - As the work week began this morning, thousands are waking up in the dark in and around Detroit.
The backstory:
Motorists are advised to allow a little more time for the drive to work, with FOX 2 finding numerous intersections on Woodward without working traffic lights in Royal Oak and Huntington Woods.
Friday night severe storms rolled through the area bringing 60 to 70 mile-per-hour wind gusts which brought down trees – and power lines.
The sum total of damage totaled 300,000 DTE customers in the dark.
"What we are seeing this particular event, these are very large trees," said Brian Calka, DTE senior vp. "That are in many cases, 40, 50, 60 feet away from our power lines. When they do come down, these are 80- or 90-foot trees, when they hit our infrastructure, they cause a significant amount of damage.
"We are seeing a significant portion of our outages driven by that."
On the DTE website, the energy provider expects 95 percent of impacted customers to be restored by the end of today.
"If you reported an outage following the extreme weather that affected our area, your restoration estimate is available by clicking 'Outage Status,'" the message said. "We estimate that 95% of impacted customers will be restored by the end of the day Monday, July 6."
For more information, use this link for the DTW Outage Map.
DTE reminds the public to remain at least 25 feet away from downed power lines or anything in contact with them. Assume any downed line is live and dangerous.
The Source: Information for this report is from DTE Energy.