(WXYZ) — DTE Energy crews have been out in the field since yesterday, trying to get the lights back on to some half a million customers.
As of 5 a.m., DTE reports more than 500,000 customers without power, and the goal is to get 95% of customers restored by Sunday.
The conditions today and into the weekend could actually help efforts to restore power, according to DTE.
The company said the amount of ice build-up from Wednesday's storm impacted infrastructure in a way they haven't seen in decades.
"We had ice that was between a quarter of an inch almost to 3/4 of an inch of ice… and that takes down infrastructure everywhere," DTE President Trevor Lauer said.
Johnny Kwapis of Livonia is one of those people without power, and he's making the best of things, even without a generator.
"Got the fire going in the fireplace, got some ice to put in the freezer," he said.
The biggest headaches Thursday, DTE said, were Livingston and parts of Washtenaw counties, where ice build-up remained an issue and outages continued to climb.
In addition to lineworkers, Lauer said 3,500 DTE employees were helping cover restoration efforts for some 200,000 homes and businesses in Southeast Michigan, and more employees are expected to join that effort on Friday.
"We've also taken the opportunity to open electrical equipment and we've intentionally caused outages for some customers while we work on wire downs," Lauer said.
Those intentional outages impacted about 70,000 customers. The good news, Lauer said in our area, no injuries were reported due to outages or downed wires.
Most of the ice has melted, and despite the chill this morning, Lauer said the weekend poses a reduced risk for more outages.
"What I can assure you, is that we're going to do everything we can to get the power back on as quickly as we can, but in a safe manner," Lauer said.
Since the 70s, DTE has built infrastructure underground, but whatever is not risks outages. Lauer said hefty price tag and environmental impact of moving everything underground is too big of an undertaking, so that's why not all of the wiring is below us.
