Crews working to restore power to tens of thousands in Michigan after storms

It’s been almost two days since severe weather hit multiple communities in Metro Detroit.

The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that three tornadoes touched down in Southeast Michigan amid the severe weather.

“We were driving down, and we see these uprooted trees and we couldn’t believe it,” said Julie Vasquez, who grew up in Lincoln Park, Michigan.

An EF-0 tornado moved through Lincoln Park Thursday. The damaging winds that reached up to 70 mph around 4 p.m. blew through Fort Street, damaging the park in front of Kennedy Memorial Rec and Senior Center. The First Baptist Church right next door was untouched.

“She was just here at a concert a couple weeks ago and I grew up here. It’s devastating,” said Vasquez.

Another miracle occurred on Meldrum and Benson streets in Detroit. The New Liberty Baptist Church only faced a power outage after an EF-2 tornado in the area ripped apart homes, industrial buildings and many power lines.

“We were very amazed by the damage around us, but very little to our church building,” said Pastor Maurice Stimage. 

Stimage has been the pastor at New Liberty Baptist Church for 20 years. He says the community has never faced such devastation, but that he and his members plan to lend a helping hand.

“It’s just devastating. It just feels like we’ve been hit really hard. There are many small businesses in this area wondering how they’re going to come back from this type of devastation,” said Stimage.

“Damage that I am seeing here is one of the, if not the most, significant damage due to a weather event in my career,” said DTE Energy Senior Vice President of Electric Operations Brian Claka.

Claka says there were around 4,000 utility workers focused on restoring power on Saturday afternoon.

Since the severe weather began Wednesday, Claka says, in total, around 450,000 customers were impacted. As of Saturday at 10:40 p.m. ET, 39,680 people are still without service, according to the utility company’s outage map.

While DTE works to restore power and make sure that its power lines and poles are strong and sturdy for the future, it asks those cleaning up or running generators to move with caution.

The company is asking people to refrain from doing cleanup before power crews ensure how dangerous power lines are in the area. 

“We do realize the generators are in use. I can hear a few going on right now. Please, please do not put them indoors. They should remain outdoors,” said Claka.

DTE says its goal was to restore power to 90% to 92% of its customers by Saturday night.