WATERFORD, Mich. (WXYZ) — When Waterford residents lost power Wednesday evening, they figured it would be back on by the time they woke up on Thursday.
"They said it would come back on around 11:30 pm. Well, we went to bed and no power came back on," said Greg Hack.
Greg and his wife Rose are one of about 4,800 households that were still without power Friday.
"It's been awful," said Rose. "I have trouble with my feet and my ankles with the heat and no air conditioning and no electric or anything."
DTE said it is an underground cable that failed - a rare event, according to Markeith Poteat, DTE Regional Customer Operations Director for the Northwest Region.
Poteat said their first priority is restoring power and then trying to determine what caused the cable to fail.
For now, they are working to get customers back on with an emergency cable for which crews had to procure the materials needed.
"We built out the cable last night. And our crews are actually in the process of testing that cable so that we can get power restored by sometime today," Poteat told 7 Action News.
Poteat said it's been a complicated process because the failed cable is such a rare event.
That does little to help ease frustration with customers who clung to hope that every time they received an updated restoration time, it would hold.
Sura Karriem said she and so many others have lost food and spent money on gas for their generators only to have DTE move the goalpost on when their power will be restored.
"One recording is saying we're going to restore it at this time, and then when that time approaches, I get another call pushing it out. Then another call. Then a different story. Then another call. But the power's still out," said Sura. "Some people have gone to hotels. You have no choice but to eat out. Eating out is pretty expensive now."
DTE's Poteat said now that they're now working to test the emergency cable, a lot of customers should have their power restored by 6:30 pm Friday, but it could take up to 9:00 pm.
"We're confident," Poteat said. "By 9 pm tonight, all of our customers will have their power back due to this outage."
