3,000 DTE customers in Washtenaw County remain without power Thursday afternoon
Two days after a winter storm swept through Washtenaw County, knocking down tree limbs and breaking power lines, about 3,000 people remain without power, according to DTE Energy.
DTE crews work on restoring power Thursday afternoon.
Melanie Maxwell I AnnArbor.com
Spokesman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said less than 3,000 people remained without power in the county just before 5 p.m. Thursday. That’s down from approximately 27,000 people who lost power in Washtenaw County due to the storm.
Bodipo-Memba said 95 percent of the people who were lost power due to the storm in southeast Michigan have had it restored. According to the company’s outage map, most of those remained in Washtenaw County.
“We do expect to get virtually everybody back by midnight tonight,” Bodipo-Memba said.
According to the company’s outage map, the largest area without power before 5 p.m. Thursday was on the edge of Pittsfield Township and Ypsilanti Township, just southeast of West Michigan Avenue and U.S.-23.
Pockets of customers without power littered the city of Ann Arbor, Dexter area, Chelsea area and the Ypsilanti area.
There were reports from some DTE customers that their power would not come back on until Friday morning, causing some to worry about how they would see out the week.
The winter storm left seven inches of snow in some parts of Ann Arbor. The damp, heavy snow caused tree limbs around the area to fall, often bringing power lines with them.
Dexter and Ypsilanti schools remained closed Thursday because of power outages and other schools scattered throughout the area canceled classes due to darkened buildings.
Kyle Feldscher covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
Comments
Z-man
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 6:05 p.m.
We were told we'd have our power restored by 6:30 pm on Thursday. It finally came back at noon today (Friday). For some reason, we're in a small area of houses that loses power frequently and are usually the last to have it restored, and usually everyone across the street from us has power while we're in the dark. DTE has been unable to do anything to deal with these chronic outages despite our frequent complaints over the years. DTE is by far the worst utility we've ever death with!
Technojunkie
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 4:03 a.m.
It would be nice if DTE, Comcast and AT&T all cooperated on a program to build an underground system of cable conduit and utility vaults for each company's wiring and, while they're at it, Comcast and AT&T could run Fiber To The Home so that Internet speeds wouldn't suck and DTE could harden their system against EMP. That way when these storms come around a frickin' tree limb wouldn't knock out power and comms for days. Maybe redirect their marketing budgets to building infrastructure? Pay linemen instead of ad men? I know, not gonna happen.
brian
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 12:37 a.m.
Hey DTE, how about a rebate for those without power. We have to give, why not you?
jcj
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 12:27 p.m.
Machine Key Words- The original estimate.
Machine
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 11:27 a.m.
I'd like reimbursement for the food I had to throw away. The original estimate for the power to be restored was Wednesday evening so I left everything in my fridge. By the time I found out they wouldn't be able to restore it until Thursday evening, it was too late to do anything.
justcurious
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 1:42 a.m.
Good point HB11! But the people without cable tv or internet will have to ask for a rebate.
HB11
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 12:54 a.m.
Don't worry, you won't be billed for the power you did not use while it was out.
arborani
Fri, Mar 1, 2013 : 12:25 a.m.
Has anyone noticed the widespread outage of Comcast internet, phone and cable service? Has been impossible to get any Comcast response except for automated messages promising restore times/dates which pass without any repair - 3 days now.
Ann English
Thu, Feb 28, 2013 : 10:57 p.m.
Thanks for the photograph; I had seen three such vehicles in my area and had assumed they were designed to remove broken tree branches only, not to restore power. 1-2 hours after I saw the first two go in the same direction, the power came back on.