METRO DETROIT (WWJ) - Under 200,000 residents in Metro Detroit are without power Saturday afternoon as clean up efforts continue more than 24 hours after wet, heavy snow rapidly accumulated on homes, roadways, powerlines and trees.
According to the DTE outage map, 185,967 customers are affected by outages which struck Royal Oak, Livonia and Westland particularly hard. Some of the same residents who just had power restored after a historic ice storm slammed Southeast Michigan last week found themselves in the dark — again.
Last night's winter storm brought heavy snowfall rates around 2 inches or more per hour over a short period of time, blanketing everything in sight with thick, wet snow.
Powerlines and trees weakened by ice at the end of February were further burdened by the heavy snow, which snapped branches and brought down overhead wires.
DTE President Trevor Lauer apologized to customers on Saturday morning, but said the company is doing all they can to get everyone back online.
"This isn't the experience we want for our customers. All I can do is apologize on behalf of the company," Lauren said. "But what I will say is that we've had 4,000 employees working now for 10 straight days as a result of the ice storm. If you see our employees out in the field, they're not the ones to be angry at. They're out trying to help everybody try to get the power back on as quickly as we can right now."
Lauer explained that their crew strength is down as workers left to help in other states also impacted by the same powerful storm system that dumped snow throughout the Midwest and brought 70 mph winds, hail and tornados in the south.
According to PowerOutage.us, about 1.2 million Americans were without power Saturday, with most of the outages in Kentucky and Michigan.
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"Right now the number one thing I think that we can do is keep everybody's head up and make sure they stay safe," Lauer said. "We've got some exhaustion going on."
DTE is out assessing storm damage from overnight. An update on restoration efforts is expected this evening. Lauer said earlier that there's no timetable for full restoration, but the company's website stated at 6 p.m. that they estimate 95% of customers who lost power from the storm will be restored by the end of the day Monday, March 6.
DTE continued to remind the public to stay 25 feet, or the length of a bus, away from downed power lines or any object close to or touching a wire that is down. To report a downed wire, call 800-477-4747, visit outage.dteenergy.com or report the downed wire on the DTE app.