An estimated 20,000 people in Livingston County were without power Tuesday morning, and could be for several days, according to Livingston County Emergency Management, because of storms Monday evening that packed 70 mph winds.
During to a press conference Tuesday afternoon, DTE representative Trevor Lauer said an estimated 80% of DTE customers will have power restored by the end of the day Thursday and 95% of customers will have power restored by the end of the day Friday. As of Tuesday, there are about 265,000 DTE customers without power, he said.
Since Monday night, Lauer said, there were calls for about 4,000 outage events, including utility poles falling down or wires taken out by trees. There were about 3,200 different crews working on wire-down coverage Tuesday, Lauer said. They were still trying to call in crews from out of state to help.
"We have excellent crews, they will work their way through this and we will get the lights back on for everybody," he said. Until then, he warned people to be carefuland to talk to children about being careful around wire downs. He said it's best to be at least 20 feet away.
From noon to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, DTE Energy staff were scheduled to be in the Kohl's parking lot on Whitmore Lake Road in Brighton, giving out half gallons of water to those affected by the storm.
Residents who arrived at the site were grateful for the gesture, receiving bottles of water for drinking and half gallons for individuals with wells.
Brighton resident Tony Licata said the storm made him realize he should be more prepared and find alternate ways to power his well so it can be used when something like this happens again.
The storm was formed by multiple thunderstorms, what meteorologists refer to as a "squall line," according to Andrew Dixon, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids.
"It was an unbroken line of storms that moved onshore from Lake Michigan and moved all the way across the Lower Peninsula," Dixon said.
Michigan officials have reported one death in the storm's wake. A 14-year-old girl died from electrocution after touching a downed powerline, Monroe police said Monday night.
Winds were strongest when making immediate landfall near Holland, Dixon said, with gusts reaching 60-70 mph. Inland areas such as Greater Lansing — but also Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Jackson — saw less intense winds, but they were still strong enough to do damage.
"What that did was bring down trees and powerlines. That was the main type of damage," Dixon said.
According to the DTE's outage map, significant outages in the county exist in the Howell area. The Brighton area has scattered outages, but large areas in the Pinckney and Green Oak Township areas are without power.
"We typically get one really bad storm a year and here it is. We've had worse. It can be a lot of lines down. We've got to get the power back up. That's just going to take time," Livingston County Emergency Management Director Therese Cremonte said. "People have trees down in their yard. They are going to have to take care of that. We've been able to clear most of the thoroughfares and roadways."
Firefighters in Livingston County responded to numerous fire reports Monday night.
"The (downed power) lines coming down because they are still live and they will arc will often create the fire situation, so that was mainly what they were dealing with yesterday," Cremonte said.
Some Traffic lights were out Tuesday along Grand River in Genoa Township, west from Brighton toward Howell, including at Dorr Road and Lake Chemung, where the highway meets Grand River Avenue, according to Cremonte. Residents should treat intersections as four-way stops.
According to reports Monday morning, there were at least 50 separate downed tree reports to emergency officials who worked to get trees off the roads until early Tuesday. Cremonte worked with DTE to notify them of the critical infrastructure that would require power immediately, such as fire and police departments, long-term care and assisted livings facilities, and wastewater treatment plants.
The widespread power outages forced some schools to close Tuesday, including Howell Public Schools and one elementary school in Hartland Consolidated Schools district.
According to its Facebook page, Pinckney Community Schools has power. Brighton Area Schools has power, but classes don't start until after Labor Day. Further, according to Fowlerville Community Schools superintendent Wayne Roedel, Fowlerville Community Schools have power as well.
"Those storms popped up to our east and the to the south. We have some families in the district that are without power, really south of the express way, but all of our buildings, being on one campus, we don't have any issues," Roedel said.
