‘Relief’: Lights back on for Milford family without power for six days after Local 4 reaches out

MILFORD, Mich. – A Milford family with four children and a mom pregnant with twins spent six days in the dark after last week’s severe storms. Frustrated, they reached out to Local 4 for help and everything changed when the news crew showed up.

Local 4 got to William O’Connor’s Milford home about half an hour before the lights turned on and after Local 4 called DTE about the situation.

“I had to get in touch with a news crew to fix this so fast?” O’Connor said.

With four kids in the house and a wife pregnant with twins – it’s taken a toll.

“How does it feel to see that light on?” Local 4 asked.

“It’s a sigh of relief. I can’t. It’s good,” O’Connor said emotionally.

This all started early in the morning on Wednesday.

At first, they understood it may take a bit to get the power back – and they’re grateful for the work DTE crews have done, but frustration began to mount when DTE told them help was on the way.

“But when you get to day four and you start getting texts at midnight that your power is back and the kids wake up and they’re told the power is back and you’re just having to tell them for the next three days that it’s not coming back. It’s not coming back. It’s not coming back,” he said.

The toll doesn’t stop there. They’ve lost about $1,200 in groceries.

“I mean they can only have cereal and whatever is in the pantry and it’s just something that you don’t think you’d have to go through for six days,” O’Connor said.

They’re keeping what they can cold in this cooler but things are dwindling.

It wasn’t just his house, though. He says 13 other homes near his were in this situation.

“Last night, I circled and I saw that all these houses have power. But, why nobody has looked at this box for us 13 people, is just — that’s the frustrating part,” O’Connor said.

And even though the power is back on now, some of his frustration still lingers.

“Hopefully it stays on and doesn’t go back on. I can’t wait to tell my family,” O’Connor said.

DTE shared this statement in reference to the O’Connor’s situation.

“We know being without power for an extended period is frustrating, and we sincerely apologize to customers who are still waiting for service to be restored, especially during a holiday weekend. While we have restored power to 99% of the more than 450,000 customers impacted by this week’s extreme weather, some outages are taking longer than expected. In certain cases, crews are finding additional damage requiring further work before power can be restored safely. Our Storm Response Team of more than 4,000 dedicated workers remains focused on restoring power to every customer as quickly and safely as possible, and we expect to restore all customers today.”