REDFORD TWP., Mich. (WXYZ) — A storm knocked out power to homes and businesses across Redford Township, leaving residents and business owners dealing with downed power lines, electrical fires, and another day of lost revenue.
Heavy branches crashed down during the storm, some landing on power lines and disrupting lives across the township.
WATCH VIDEO BY REPORTER TONY GEFTOS BELOW
Chuck Fox has lived in his home on Ivanhoe near Norborne for the past 25 years. Late Wednesday night, he watched as a storm started an electrical fire in the backyard next door.
"We looked out our back window, and there was a line, obviously down behind our neighbor's house here, and it was on fire all along there," Fox said. "The grass was on fire."
Redford Township firefighters arrived within minutes, making sure the flames did not spread. DTE line workers then spent the morning cleaning up and working to restore power.
On West Chicago, Celeste Kelley heard a large tree branch crash onto the roadway during the storm. Kelley, who has lived in the area for 30 years, calls the tree a problem and wants Wayne County to remove it entirely.
"Yeah, I did hear a little bloop," Kelley said. "Hopefully they will come cut it down at some point in time because, as you can see, it's leaning pretty much into the street. This is a consistent thing that the branches are falling every time there's a storm."
At Beech-Daly and Five Mile, Gjon Sinishtaj was once again firing up his gas-powered generator to keep the coolers running inside his restaurant, Redford Grill and Bar.
"It's been happening a lot in the last year," Sinishtaj said. "It gets a little difficult. I still have a family to feed. I still have bills to pay, and I have girls texting me all day today; they depend on coming to work cause it is the first month that rent is due."
"The whole business day is lost by the time I call all my staff in, and we get back to normal and re-organize everything, and I'm sure we have to throw some stuff away because obviously we didn't use it," Sinishtaj said.
Sinishtaj said he is still waiting for his insurance to cover losses from the last time that storms knocked out power to his restaurant two months ago.
"Actually, just July 4. We were out for eight days, and now we just got.....trying to get back to normal, and now this happens again and we still haven't got recovered from the eight days we lost back then," Sinishtaj said.
He is hoping to quickly bounce back from yet another storm and power outage that hurt his business.
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