(WXYZ) — Thousands of metro Detroiters are waking up in the dark, with some communities going without power for over 48 hours.
DTE said that this was one of most impactful storms on their grid, saying Friday's 60 mile-per-hour winds broiught 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 6 a.m., more than 79,000 metro customers in metro Detroit were without power, with that total going down from 400,000 people on Friday.
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 instriucted 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 pummerled over the holiday weekend. That includes Dearborn Heights and Dearborn, where the fire department distributed dry ice so residents' food could last a bit linger.
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 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.
