(WXYZ) — Thousands of metro Detroiters are waking up in the dark, with some communities going without power for over 48 hours.
Related: What to know about DTE's electric reliability credit for power outages after Friday's storm
DTE said that this was one of most impactful storms on their grid, saying Friday's 60 mile-per-hour winds brought down a couple thousand power lines and trees. The damage was worse than DTE had expected and prepared for; per the DTE Outage Map, as of Monday morning at 11:45 a.m., 79,510 metro customers in metro Detroit were without power, with that total going down from 400,000 people on Friday.
On Monday, DTE senior vice president Brian Calka spoke about the restoration efforts, saying that it was one of the worst storms he's seen in his time at DTE and that they also had problems getting crews from other states due to issues that happened in other states.
According to Calka, they have restored power to 85% of customers – around 325,000 people, and hope to restore power to 95% by the end of the day Monday. The rest should have power by the end of the day Tuesday.
"I do recognize we are making progress, but there are thousands of customers who are still waiting for power to be restored. Customers who fall into that category, we have not forgotten about you," Calka said.
You can see his entire press conference in the video below
We've seen several areas across metro Detroit without power, including Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Royal Oak.
We spoke to people overnight who didn't want to go on camera, but you could hear the frustration in their voices.
Watch our reports from Ryan Marshall and Ruta Ulcinaite below
“We got hit hard by those storms. Mother Nature wasn’t playing," said Detroit resident Al Williams, who said his home didn't lose power. "My neighbors next over, they are suffering. I’m in the University District. And, a lot of blocks, maybe every other one, a lot of people are out of power currently.”
This comes as DTE works to restore power as quickly as possible. The energy giant said that over 200,000 customers had their service restored within the first 24 hours of suffering power outages. However, many still remain in the dark.
“There are customers who will most likely be out of power until Tuesday. We are communicating with those customers. We are reaching out to them let them know what that expectation looks like," said Brian Calka, DTE's Senior Vice President of Distribution Operations in a Sunday press conference. “...right in Monroe County. We have many cases where we have outages with eight to 10 to 12 broken poles. And, in order to restore all the customers who were impacted by that outage, every one of those poles has to be replaced.”
Related: Watch Sunday's press conference with DTE Senior Vice President Brian Calka
In Detroit, Mayor Sheffield instructed several departments over the weekend to provide response and relief efforts to ensure the most vulnerable populations are cared for.
Wayne County was among the counties that got absolutely pummeled over the holiday weekend. That includes Dearborn Heights and Dearborn, where the fire department distributed dry ice so residents' food could last a bit longer.
We spoke with a few Dearborn residents who were leaving the Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn over the weekend to get the ice.
“This is the fourth time in less than month that we have been out of power a period of time," said Malcolm Smith. "This has kind of been difficult but it’s to be expected in this area. You got a lot of old trees and it’s what you expect when you live on tree line streets.”
“It’s extremely inconvenient but when I look at the damage other people are experiencing, it’s just a mild inconvenience for me," said Barbara Howard.
DTE said a majority of power should be restored to the area by the end of Monday. The good news is that temperatures have dropped, offering residents some much-needed relief.
