(WXYZ) — More than 19,000 DTE customers remained without power as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, five days after severe weather brought heavy wind and rain to the metro Detroit area Friday night.
Watch Whitney Burney's video report:
Neighbors near W. Chicago and Middlebelt Road in Livonia say they need DTE to work faster, with costs mounting for families spending hundreds of dollars on takeout meals, generator fuel, and other necessities.
Claude Fradette, a Livonia resident, said the wait has gone on long enough.
"Five days is enough. We're ready," said Fradette. "It’s been rough. Everything relies on power so what are you going to do."
Kelsey Egyhazi who also lives in Livonia said the conditions inside her home have been difficult to endure.
"As far as the heat, the humidity in the house it's been pretty unbearable especially for pets and kids."
Egyhazi says the financial toll of working from home without power is also becoming more costly.
Watch an update from DTE in the video below
"Running the generator every day with gas being almost $4 a gallon, that adds up to $20-$40 a day depending on how you run it. I had to get Starlink which is an additional expense on internet since I work from home. That's $165 right now, not to mention the food. It's adding up for sure and I think what we're getting in return for it is a little unreasonable."
Sam Konja, a Farmington Hills resident, said he has been making multiple trips to the gas station each day to fuel his generator.
"It's costing me almost $200 so far," Konja said.
A downed tree on a power line near Konja's home is the source of his days-long outage. DTE says they're currently working to begin trimming the tree back before the restoration process can begin. Konja said he is growing more concerned for senior neighbors in the meantime.
"This cannot drag on. It's one thing if it's 60 degrees, you can deal with the weather but when it's 90, it's hard to breathe. It's hard to do anything."
From Friday to Tuesday morning, DTE says it was able to double the number of workers in the field. There are now 4,000 crew members working to restore power. DTE CEO Joi Harris says after struggling to bring in extra help from out of state, the utility is on track to restore power to 100% of customers by Tuesday night.
"The storm we experienced last Friday developed very quickly with very little notice and left a path of extensive damage in its wake," said Harris. "We did not get the severe weather warnings until 90 minutes before the storm actually hit and so that left us in a position where we had to secure additional crews in a time frame that is much shorter than what we typically experience."
When asked what she wants families to hear regarding the $42 credit DTE has offered customers, Harris said the company acknowledges it falls short.
"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."
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