LIVONIA, Mich. (WXYZ) — Mangled lines and a transformer barely hanging on are visible in the area near 6 Mile and Inkster roads, where DTE Energy has a significant cleanup ahead.
Heather Schoppert has been without power since Friday and described the experience in simple terms.
"It's been awful," Schoppert said.
"Each day, another estimate, another estimate. That's four days," Schoppert said.
DTE has said it plans to restore all outages from Friday's storm by end of day Tuesday.
But as of the time of this report, some residents said they had yet to see any utility trucks on their street. I asked neighbor Kelly Nedo if he had seen any DTE trucks.
"No. No trucks on our road that I have seen," Nedo said.
Schoppert has a generator keeping her refrigerator running and a few fans on, but the costs are adding up.
"We're having to spend a lot of money on gas to keep the generator running. We've been to the gas station twice, filled up four gas cans and now we're on round two of that," Schoppert said.
DTE customers affected by the major outage will receive a $42 credit to their accounts per day. Schoppert said that amount falls far short of what residents need.
"And they're saying we're going to get $42 dollars. Forty-two dollars? What is that gonna pay for? That isn't going to pay for the gas," Schoppert said.
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DTE CEO Joi Harris acknowledged the credit does not cover residents' full losses.
"We know that $42 doesn't cut it and I want to say we're very sorry that our customers experience this types of hardship. We know the difficulty that represents. The $42 a day actually does not cover all of the expense. It's not intended to. The focus we have is preventing those types of events from happening all together," Harris said.
For Nedo, the $42 daily credit doesn't come close to covering what he lost. He estimates he lost between $300 and $500 worth of food from two refrigerators and two freezers.
"All the eggs, all the meat, all the venison from deer hunting. Steaks, hamburger, all the frozen foods," Nedo said.
Residents on Deering Street are now waiting for power to be restored, so they can restock their refrigerators and return to everyday life.
"I'm just irritated," Schoppert said.
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