188,000 customers remain without power after Michigan windstorm

Almost 200,000 businesses and homes remained without power in southeastern Michigan and Detroit on Sunday evening, two days after windstorms wreaked havoc in the area.

A spokeswoman with DTE Energy, the area’s power provider, said 375,000 of the company’s 2.1 million customers initially lost power after Friday’s storms.

More than 2,000 power lines were knocked down by winds that the National Weather Service said reached 74 mph, causing damage around Flint, Ann Arbor and Detroit.

“This storm was actually among the most damaging storms in our company’s 111-year history,” said Erica Donerson, a spokeswoman for DTE Energy. “It’s actually in the top 10.”

DTE Energy repair workers -- with help from 600 line workers brought in from other utilities in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York and Tennessee -- have been putting in 16-hour shifts to restore power, company officials said.

As of Sunday evening, 188,000 customers remained without power, Donerson told the Los Angeles Times.

The “vast majority” of those customers will see their power restored by Monday night, with “some small clusters” not expected to get power back until Tuesday or Wednesday, Donerson said.

Friday’s wind damage came less than a month after torrential rain and flooding led Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to declare states of emergency for Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties in southeast Michigan.

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