Power restoration expected Saturday for 9K DTE customers - Detroit News

Power restoration expected Saturday for 9K DTE customers
Jakkar Aimery

About 9,000 DTE Energy customers were still without power Saturday afternoon, two days after severe storms charged through southeast Michigan, causing tennis ball-sized hail to fall from the sky.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, the DTE Energy outage map showed 9,059 power outages scattered across Metro Detroit, with clusters near Westland, River Rouge and Bloomfield Township, with 1,825 crews working towards restoration.

"Our crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore power to everyone impacted by the extreme weather that hit Southeast Michigan this past Thursday evening. We expect to restore nearly all those impacted by end of day Saturday, July 22," the utility said. "Please stay safe by keeping at least 25 feet away from downed power lines or anything in contact with them. Assume any downed line is live and dangerous."

More: Nearly 60K customers in the dark after storms that brought rain, hail, wind

Consumers Energy had estimated total restoration by 3 p.m. Saturday. At 4 p.m. it had just 84 customers affected by outages.

A line of storms rolled through the region by 4 p.m. Thursday as part of a squall line associated with a cold front, according to the National Weather Service, packing roughly 60-mph gusts and 1.75-2.75 inches of hail in places like Davison, 10 miles northeast of Flint.

The storm impacted more than 100,000 power customers across Michigan.

More: Massive hail damages businesses, homes in Michigan; thousands still without power

Squall lines, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are groups of storms arranged in a line, often accompanied by gusts of high wind and heavy rain. Squall lines tend to pass quickly and are less prone to produce tornadoes.