(WWJ) Metro Detroit continues to clean-up from the latest round of storms that rolled through late Wednesday and into Thursday, with downed trees and power lines scattered across the area.
Tens of thousands of DTE Energy customers were still without power Thursday afternoon as crews worked to get them back online. Heather Rivard, with DTE, tells WWJ more than 1,100 DTE workers and an additional 650 out-of-state and contract workers were in the field Thursday to help with clean-up efforts.
View the DTE outage map for the latest updates
Rivard said since Tuesday night, they've had around 200,000 total homes and businesses lose power at some point, and as of noon on Thursday, there were still about 120,000 in the dark.
The hardest hit areas, as of Thursday afternoon, were near Farmington Hills and Novi, while St. Clair Shores, Roseville and Fraser saw the next biggest concentration of outages.
DTE expects 85% of customers to see power restored by Thursday night, but did not have a specific time frame for most areas.
In addition to power outages, many metro Detroiters are dealing with fallen trees caused by high winds. Chris McKay, owner of McKay Tree Specialists, tells WWJ his company has been receiving up to 50 calls a day in the wake of the storms.
"We just try to diligently move as fast as we can," McKay says, "try to get the emergencies taken care of first."
McKay said it's been "overwhelming" dealing with so many calls as they work to remove trees from on top of houses and clear driveways.
McKay expects his company will be busy throughout the rest of the summer dealing with all the calls they've been receiving.
St. Clair Shores resident Ron Gable says the storms came hard and fast through his neck of the woods, near Harper and Masonic, and knocked out power.
"It started hailing by my house, and all within 5-10 minutes, it was over," McKay told WWJ. "Then about an hour and a half, two hours later, another one came through. Got a pretty good downpour, and that was it"
Meanwhile, Southfield Fire Marshal Michael Albo is reminding residents who are without power to make sure any appliances they may have been using when power went out have been turned off.
For example, Albo tells WWJ, some people who are cooking when the power goes out can forget their stove is actually on, which can lead to big problems.
"Hopefully most people are aware that they should turn it off immediately," Albo said. "This is more of a reminder, because occasionally we do get fires in residential single-family homes, or in apartment complexes as well, and there are multiple families there."
Albo is also reminding residents who are using generators to never use them inside. They should be kept away from homes and garages to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
Stay tuned to WWJ Newsradio 950 for the latest coverage on Metro Detroit's storm recovery. >>> LISTEN LIVE
