First high winds, then a loss of power, and soon ... deepening cold.
That's the fate facing an estimated million-plus Michiganders. They now must expect to survive as long as this weekend, as temperatures begin to plunge into the teens, before everyone can get back on the grid with heat and light, according to Michigan's two utility giants -- Detroit-based DTE Energy and Jackson-based Consumers Energy.
A barrage of high winds Wednesday cut power to a record 700,000 DTE Energy customers and 290,000 customers of Consumers Energy across southeast and south-central Michigan, utility officials said.
A number of customers had been restored by about 10 p.m., bringing DTE's outage number down to about 650,000 and Consumers' down to 210,000.
The total number of customers equates to an even higher number of people because the utilities' term "customer" refers to electric meters, not individuals.
"During the height of the storm, we were seeing 1,000 customer outages a minute," said Randi Berris, a communications manager for DTE Energy.
As utility crews from Michigan began 16-hour shifts, and crews from four other states were due to arrive around dawn Thursday, families in the dark faced forecasts of possible snow and sliding temperatures for southeast Michigan, with a low of 12 predicted in Detroit by early Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Across the region, as winds clocked as high as 68 m.p.h. at Metro Airport, the weather knocked down even more trees and power lines than usual because the ground, instead of being frozen at this time of year, was soft and super-saturated with this winter's unusually heavy rains, DTE Energy said.
High winds were also blamed for scattered emergencies, including an apartment fire on Detroit's east side that caused five deaths, as weather conditions hampered firefighters and a downed wire was a possible cause, witnesses said. And gusts as high as 69 m.p.h. were a contributing factor in a near catastrophe at Willow Run Airport in Van Buren Township, when a chartered jet occupied by the University of Michigan's basketball team, coaching staff and cheerleaders aborted its takeoff and slid off a runway and through a fence.
That left the plane in shambles but caused no injuries -- "praise God," said a spokeswoman for Texas-based Ameristar Jet Charter.
Power outages were widespread but hardest-hit areas included Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties, according to DTE Energy. As its own line repair crews planned to work through the night, the utility had backup crews scheduled to arrive at dawn Thursday from five states as far away as New York; Consumers Energy also had backups coming, mainly from Indiana, officials said.
More than 700,000 DTE Energy customers were without power at the peak at 8 p.m., making this the storm with the largest number of outages in the utility's history, said Lisa Bolla, communications specialist for DTE Energy. A number of those customers had been restored by about 10 p.m.
Late Wednesday, Gov. Rick Snyder's office announced he had activated the state's Emergency Operations Center to closely monitor and share information on storm damage and power outages across the state. State Police troopers were working to keep residents safe from harm and helping anyone in danger, the news release said.
For commuters, Wednesday's afternoon rush hour was an agonizing maze of four-way stops at nonworking traffic signals and slow going around utility crews clearing downed trees. In Troy and Clawson, drivers were showing not the best manners as they jockeyed to get through intersections, said attorney John Kulesz.
"John R is a mess -- some lights are out, some are blinking and the drivers are not on their best behavior," Kulesz said. Extensive tree damage led to more than 2,000 downed wires in DTE Energy's service area, the utility said. The company expected to have more specific estimates by Thursday of when it could restore power to all customers, officials said.
Michigan crews had begun working 16-hour shifts to restore power, DTE Energy said, and additional crews were expected from Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and Pennsylvania on Thursday morning to allow for a massive around-the-clock repair effort, said DTE Electric division president Trevor Lauer, who called Wednesday's onslaught of wind "the second-worst storm" in the company's history.
The high winds had schoolkids clinging to a bus stop on 7 Mile Road near Wyoming in northwest Detroit, office workers at Detroit's Hart Plaza dissolving in laughter as winds tossed them to and fro under ironically blue skies, and one youngster in Macomb County delighted to rescue a flag.
Noah Irvine, 10 of Chesterfield township spent the better part of Wednesday afternoon rollerblading in his grandparents' driveway in Macomb Township, despite the high winds. When he got hungry, he headed inside for a snack and heard about some very local wind damage: the family's small flagpole had snapped.
That meant an American flag was brushing the ground.
"That thing can't touch the ground," Noah exlcaimed to his grandparents, "so I ran as fast as I could to pick it up," he told a Free Press photographer.
"We had just been talking about how to treat the flag," said his grandmother, Kathy Walker, 69. And Noah took action.
By phone, he told the photographer: "The American flag is safe -- it's inside."
(c)2017 the Detroit Free Press
