As a heat advisory baked Southeast Michigan today, thousands of Metro Detroiters woke up sweating for all the wrong reasons. A localized DTE outage left more than 7,400 customers without electricity, cutting a wide swath along the M-39 corridor and knocking out power to Wayne County Community College's Northwest Campus. With temperatures climbing, the blackout quickly turned into a scramble to stay cool and keep food from spoiling. DTE's outage map tagged the strip between Seven Mile Road and Grand River Avenue as the hardest hit and labeled the issue as an equipment problem. Local officials urged residents without power to head for air-conditioned public spaces while crews worked to track down and fix the fault.
Outage totals and cause
According to CBS News Detroit, DTE's outage dashboard showed 7,418 customers without power as of 6:30 a.m. today, with the largest pocket of about 4,800 customers mapped along M-39 between Seven Mile Road and Grand River Avenue. The company's live outage center (DTE Outage Center) likewise flagged an equipment issue in that area and listed Wayne County Community College's Northwest Campus among the affected locations.
Storms stretched crews
Severe storms earlier in the week had already knocked out service to hundreds of thousands of customers across Southeast Michigan, setting off a multi-day restoration effort that left repair crews stretched thin, according to reporting by ClickOnDetroit. Utility officials said that in heavily damaged neighborhoods, they sometimes have to rebuild circuits "one customer at a time," a painstaking process that can drag out restoration timelines even after the worst of the weather has passed.
Cooling centers and food safety
With the heat advisory in effect, many Metro Detroit communities opened cooling centers to give residents a safe, air-conditioned place to ride things out, CBS News Detroit reported. The U.S. Department of Agriculture urges residents to keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed during outages: a refrigerator will keep food safe for about four hours, a full freezer can maintain temperature for roughly 48 hours, and a half-full freezer for around 24 hours. The agency offers more detailed advice on what to toss and what can be saved during prolonged outages at USDA Food Safety.
How to report outages
DTE asks customers to report outages through its online Outage Center or by calling 800-477-4747. The utility's outage FAQs explain how those reports feed into its outage-management system and help create more accurate restoration estimates, according to DTE Energy. Crews were on the ground Wednesday checking equipment and making repairs, and officials said estimated restoration times would be updated on the outage map as work continues.
If your lights are out, check the outage map, consider heading to an open cooling center if you can, and follow USDA guidance on what to do with refrigerated and frozen food. This story will be updated as DTE posts new restoration estimates and additional community resources.
