Crime & Safety

UPDATE: 500 DTE Customers Still Without Power Wednesday Evening

DTE says it knows restoration estimations have been off.

Update, 7:20 p.m. Wednesday: More than 500 Royal Oak residents remain without power Wednesday evening – four days after a powerful storm ripped through the area.

Michael Kidder is one of the DTE customers whose power was restored this evening. Although he's happy his power is back on, Kidder said he is disappointed with the information he got from the energy company.

"Day after day we were told our power will be back by 9:30 at night," Kidder said. He had options to stay with relatives or go to a hotel but said he didn't because he held out hope his electricity would be restored soon. "I would have rather had them tell me this is a catastrophic event and we won't have your power on for 10 days. I could have made plans. I felt they were misleading."

Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

DTE spokesman Scott Simons admits there was some misleading information. "We know our estimates were off," Simons said Wednesday. "We don't want to over-promise and under-deliver."

The company plans to look into why its estimates were off. "We know our customers want to know how to plan their lives," he said. "They deserve it."

Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

6 p.m. Tuesday: More than 1,400 Royal Oak residents remain without power Tuesday evening. DTE "expects to have almost everyone restored by tonight," said DTE spokesman John Austerberry. "There are some pockets of heavy damage and those could still not be working tomorrow."

8:50 a.m. Tuesday: Thousands of Royal Oak residents have been without electricity since Saturday evening's storm. According to DTE's power outage map, about 1,500 remain without power . Many families in the southeast corner of the city will be getting ready for the first day of school in the dark this morning. All Royal Oak schools have power, including Oakland Elementary where power was restored midday Monday.

8:50 a.m. Monday: Power is coming back for many Royal Oak residents who have been without electricity since Saturday evening's storm. According to DTE's power outage map, about 1,300 Royal Oak customers remain without power Monday morning, most south of 11 Mile from Main Street to Campbell.

8:48 p.m. Sunday: Power has been restored to the southeast corner of Royal Oak, which was . That now leaves 2,700 DTE Energy customers still without power in Royal Oak on Sunday night.

6 p.m. Sunday: More than 3,400 DTE Energy customers in Royal Oak are still without power Sunday evening after a quick, powerful storm knocked down trees and power lines Saturday evening.

The number of customers without power is down from earlier today, were still without power at 11 a.m.

The bulk of the remaining outages are in the southeast corner of the city, south of 11 Mile Road between Campbell and I-75.

The utility company hopes to restore power to 50 percent of southeast Michigan's 120,000 affected customers by midnight, DTE spokesman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said. The rest should be restored Monday, he said.


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