WATERFORD, Mich. (WXYZ) — Thousands of people in Oakland County remain without power. Many who started the day with power lost it.
The wreckage is still visible around Waterford, which is one of the areas hardest hit in Oakland County. Residents say they’re going to have a hard time if the power remains off in the coming days.
“It’s rough. It’s rough,” Karalea Williams said. “We’re boiling water for heat.”
Williams says she had just moved all of her food to the garage to stay cold and she was trying to entertain a bored 5-year-old.
She was surprised to hear power could be out until Sunday.
“Oh no. Oh, I don’ know. We can’t stay here. We would have to go get a hotel or something,” she said.
Just across the street, Teresa Truckey was busy scraping off her car. She was headed to take her 3-year-old to stay with her mom.
“Feels like nobody cares. Like we’ve been dealing with losing power multiple times throughout the year,” Truckey said.
She lays the blame squarely at the feet of DTE.
“When are you going to deal with this? Like we’re paying all this money and you’re about to up prices for energy? And we can’t even make sure and know that we’re going to have power,” Truckey said.
Erica Pappas, who also lives in Waterford, had checked into the Holiday Inn with her family after losing power.
“This morning I said, ‘We might as well book tonight.’ And we got the last reservation,” Pappas said.
In fact, the hotel clerk told 7 Action News they only had 20% of rooms booked Thursday morning and by the afternoon, they were completely full.
Pappas is just glad they have a temporary place to stay.
“The fact that I just bought a bunch of groceries and they’re all probably going to go bad,” she said. “And I still have to work and of course, we have the little one. It’s just no fun at all.”
