Utility crews— again — worked through the early morning hoursto restore powerto tens of thousands of Michigan homes and businesses that had lost it during Tuesday night’s violent storms.
The state's two largest utilities — DTE Energy and Consumers Energy — reported at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, more than 126,000 power customers had been affected by the storm. Bymidafternoon Wednesday, that number had dwindled toabout 43,000.
And on top of being powerless, Michiganders in metro Detroit also faced aheat advisory from 1-8 p.m. Wednesday. Temperatures were in the high 80s with high humidity, making it feel like it's 100 — or more, forecasters said.
For residents who now have noelectricity to help them keep cool, the stifling temperatures could be lethal.
"The last week of August is going to be pretty hot and humid," said National Weather Service meteorologistSteve Considine. "If you don't like the heat and humidity, then it's not going to be a fun weekend."
Considine addedthat with more heat andstorms, itcould get a lotworse before it gets better.
"The severe weather we saw once again left behind a path of destruction, and now our crews are back at it to restore power as quickly and safely as possible to all of our impacted customers,"Guy Packard, a Consumers Energy vice president, said early Wednesday."We appreciate our customers’ patience as crews work around the clock to evaluate the damage and turn the lights back on for everyone."
Meanwhile,Attorney General DanaNesselis launching an online effort to allow residentsand business owners with power outages to detail their experiences, includinghow long the outage lastedand the financial loss suffered.
"It remains unacceptable that Michigan residents have grown to expect power outages every time there’s severe weather in the forecast," Nessel said. "We can — and must — do better. I appreciate the public’s help by providing myofficewithinformation on the hardships they faced during extended outages."
And the city of Detroit is opening four recreation centers, currently open for food distribution, to serve as cooling centers for residents.Residents and staff are required to wear a face mask and observe social distancing.
The centers —Butzel Family Center, 7737 Kercheval;Farwell Recreation Center, 2711 E. Outer Drive;Lasky Recreation Center, 13200 Fenelon; and Patton Recreation Center, 2301 Woodmere —will be open from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.
Tuesday'sdownpours and future storm forecasts also brought fears of more flash flooding and flashbacks to recent weather events that more than once this summer turned roadways into canals and basem*nts intoswimming pools.
In some areas, there was 1-2 inches of rain, gusts up to66 mph and severe tree damage.There's a 30% chance of more showers Wednesday night, and a 40% chance, Thursday, a warning for folks whose homes are in areas prone to flooding.
The Great Lakes Water Authority —which provides water and sewer services for southeast Michigan and has been under fire for recent flooding —issued a severe weather alert Tuesday to residents,especially those inlowareas.
Consumers Energy reported nearly 70,000customers without power Tuesdaynight, most of them in central Michigan, near Mount Pleasant, toward the western side of the state, and in the Midland and Saginaw areas, near the Thumb.By early morning Wednesday, power was reconnected to about 31,000 households.
DTE's outage map showedabout 57,000 customers with no electricity Tuesday night throughout the metro Detroit area, including Dearborn, Livonia, Wixom, White Lake Township, Oxford, Waterford, and Sterling Heights. By earlyWednesday morning, power had been restored to about 16,000customers.
Both companies have been facingcriticism from frustrated customers, consumer watchdogs, and government officials, who argued that more needs to be done to improve power reliability, whichlags far behind other states.
OnWednesday, theMichigan Public Service Commissiondirected the electric utilities it regulates to answer questions about the companies’ responses to storms that left more than a millionMichiganders without power, some for more than a week.
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DTE offers $100 credit to customers still without power as of Monday
Last week, power companyDTE Energy said amid growing criticismthat it had"voluntarily issued"$100 credits — significantly more than the $25 credits it normally offers — as a one-time courtesy tocustomers who still remained out of poweron Monday morningfrom last week's storms.
Nessel also said Monday she was "once again calling" on the state's two power companies "to voluntarily credit customers affected by the outages and to provide greater credits to assist customers who have lost hundreds of dollars or more in food and alternative housing costs."
And theMichigan League of Conservation Voters piled on, callingfor the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Legislature to conduct oversight hearings on the failures by DTE and Consumers Energy to prevent outages and reconnect customers following summer storms.
DTE Energy and Consumers Energy also have been criticized for multimillion-dollarexecutive compensation, andaccording to areport by a Washington,D.C., think tank,for beingamong 55 publicly traded corporations last year that paid nofederal corporate income taxes.
Amy Bandyk, the executive director of Citizens Utility Board of Michigan, urged residents in a recent column to take their concerns to regulators and lawmakers, adding that Michigan has "more severe power outages than most of the rest of the country, and it has been that way for years."
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
Documentyour experience
Attorney General Dana Nessel is asking Michigan residents to report their power outage experiences though an online format www.michigan.gov/ag. Michiganders with both residential and business accounts can complete theform twice, once for each account.
