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Neighborhood near Silver Lake hit with damage, power outages following storm

GREEN OAK TOWNSHIP STORM DAMAGE HEAT WAVE
Posted at 5:25 PM, Jun 18, 2024

GREEN OAK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A Livingston County neighborhood woke up to no power after severe weather pushed through Monday night. 

The neighborhood, which is near Silverside Drive and Doane Road in Green Oak Township, was filled with crews working to clean up Tuesday afternoon.

"I was upstairs with the air on and the fan on, so I really didn’t hear anything, really," Deborah Wirwille said as she recounted the storm. "It was real nice. Everybody was out having a good time and then just woosh! It’s crazy. We get a lot of predominate winds on this side of the lake anyway, but this is like crazy wind." 

DEBORAH WIRWILLE

Some boats and docks were damaged by the heavy winds. There were also several uprooted trees that took out power lines and fell on top of a garage and vehicles.

VIDEO: Hear more from neighbor Deborah Wirwille

Hear more from neighbor Deborah Wirwille

"This is a little hard to swallow," said Bob Pregitzer, who lives in the area.

bob pregitzer

Pregitzer spoke to 7 News Detroit outside of his sister's home, which is attached to a now-crushed garage. He says the storm left her a bit shaken up. On top of losing power during the heatwave, Pregitzer says his sister also lost a vehicle in the storm.

"When you did come outside and you saw how big some of these trees are that fell on the garage, the cars, what was going through your mind," 7 News Detroit reporter Whitney Burney asked.

"Holy smokes! It just blew my mind. Even look at this. Holy cow! Look at the garage, it’s flattened," Pregitzer said.

He says as crews work to clean up the neighborhood, his sister will stay with him and his wife nearby. As they wait for power to be restored, they will be relying on a generator to keep cool.

The neighbors say they're grateful things weren’t worse.

"Everybody’s fine. This can all be replaced: boats flipped over, docks flipped over, but everybody is fine. Nobody got hurt and I guess that’s the blessing of it all," Wirwille said.

DTE crews spent much of the afternoon working to get customers' power restored. Neighbors say they’re hopeful to have power restored by Tuesday night or Wednesday.