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Power outage in Harper Woods after reports of underground explosion

Posted at 9:44 AM, Jul 15, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-15 13:10:35-04

A power outage in metro Detroit caused quite a scare for homeowners... who reported hearing explosions.

DTE Energy tells us about 1,000 customers lost power Friday morning when an underground cable failed. Crews remain here on the scene working on the lines.

We spoke with neighbors who tell us they heard two loud explosions. One man who was walking his dog said he saw the second explosion blow off a man-hole cover.

"The dog heard the first one, we thought it was a dumpster that had fallen so I went to look at it and there was smoke coming from the sewer, and then a second explosion came and that disrupted the sewer cover."

DTE says they do have underground power cables running below the street here and the cable failure would explain the reports of an explosion.

Those cables are similar to the same cables you would see attached to power poles, but the under ground cables are larger.

DTE says these underground cables to fail occasionally. They hope to have power restored to those 1,000 customers by about 3:30 this afternoon.