FERNDALE, Mich. (WWJ) -- At least one family in metro Detroit celebrated Wednesday afternoon as they finally had their power come back on after being without it for a full seven days following yet another round of storms last week.
Chris Fracassa had gone grocery shopping last Wednesday, and returned home with a fresh stock of chicken, steak, dairy, and other essentials -- you know, like beer.
About a half hour later the storm that blew across Michigan on Aug. 11 knocked out power to the Fracassas, along with more than 600,000 DTE Energy and Consumers Energy customers across the state.
“We didn’t want to lose everything that he bought, so steak, chicken, yogurt, that kind of stuff went into the cooler. Beer went in, because, you know, it’s important,” Danielle Fracassa told WWJ’s Zach Clark.
While most people within DTE’s service territory saw power restored within a day or two, the Fracassas were among roughly 3,700 people still without power this Wednesday, a full week after the storms -- a week in which temperatures were climbing well into the upper 80s and heat indexes were approaching triple digits.
DTE said it had about 300 crews out in the field Wednesday working to restore power where it was still out. That number pales in comparison to the roughly 3,000 crews, including out-of-state linemen called in to help restoration efforts, during the peak of the outage.
Check the DTE Energy outage map for the latest restoration estimations.
Power was finally restored at the Fracassa home in Ferndale Wednesday afternoon and Fracassa said she celebrated by turning their air conditioning “way, way down.” She noted it was by far the longest she’d ever been without power.
Fracassa says, luckily, most of their food survived, thanks to the cooler, and they cleaned out their fridge and freezer.
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The family wasn’t alone in the ordeal, though. Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders were still in the sweltering heat with now power well into the weekend, and yet thousands more were still offline as the new week began.
The storm, one of many to bring heavy rains and power outages this summer, brought with it winds that hit 70 mph in some places, with many areas experiencing wind gusts between 50-65 mph.
Fracassa lauded the DTE workers, some of whom are without power themselves, who have been working hard all week to get metro Detroit back on.
“These workers work so hard. They were in our backyard today and within minutes, it was back on. And I know that some of them are in the dark as well,” she said.
Fracassa is questioning, however, why this continues to happen to DTE customers on a frequent basis.