HAMTRAMCK, Mich. (WXYZ) — Ahead of the winter storm, utility companies were preparing for the possibility of widespread outages. However for much of Friday, those outages were few and far between.
A few pockets of metro Detroit did get hit with outages including a small area of Hamtramck.
“No power in the house. No heat, nothing good,” resident Ali Sam said.
Sam and roughly 2,000 of his neighbors near Conant and Caniff streets lost power before 9 a.m, according to the DTE Outage Map. The map reported the outage was due to wind damage.
“It's very bad out here. We need electricity for the heat, we can't warm up the food, nothing,” Sam said.
“There’s no power. We’ve been not staying warm," Hamtramck resident Adam Ali said. "I've got a nephew who’s 3 years old. It’s bad out here.”
As of Friday evening, the majority of metro Detroit had no issues. DTE reported just a few thousand outages scattered across the area. Friday night, 99.75% of customers had power.
Earlier in the week, DTE held a press conference urging customers to prepare for potential outages.
“We will come and we will restore the outages, but keep yourself warm and prepare because it’s going to be very cold if you do lose power,” DTE Electric President Trevor Lauer said on Wednesday.
Lauer said the number of outages would depend on the wind gusts.
“Five miles an hour of wind one way or the other can have a huge impact on how many customers are affected,” Lauer said. "If we start to get consistent gusts in the 60s and higher, it could cause a much higher potential event for the state of Michigan”
But the strong winds weren’t enough to cause mass outages Friday. However, the cold was enough to make it miserable for those who did lose power.
"(It's) 0 degrees, maybe -70? I'm not sure," Sam joked. "It’s very cold.”
