Energy Companies Working To Restore Power Across Michigan

DETROIT, MI —Energy companies across Michigan continued to work at restoring power Friday to an estimated 693,912 homes and businesses still without it after heavy storms on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some energy companies said it could be another day or two before power was fully restored.

The number of homes and businesses in Michigan without power had been as high as 851,897 on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutages.us, which tracks 5,360,135 residents in the state.

The state's largest power electric provider, DTE Energy, was reporting 534,556 of its roughly 2.2 million customers still without power Friday, down from 573,258 Thursday.

In Metro Detroit, where DTE Energy is the main provider in many areas, Wayne County still had 243,908 without power, Macomb County had 40,296 customers without power and Oakland County still had 130,322 without power, according to PowerOutages.us.

On its website, DTE Energy, said it was targeting to have more than 80 percent of its customers restored by the end of Saturday and around 95 percent by the end of Sunday.

"More than 1,800 DTE employees and another 1,000 out-of-state linemen have already restored power to 150,000 customers and are working 16-hour shifts to restore power as quickly and safely as possible to those who remain without power," the company said in a statement.

Consumers Energy, the state's No. 2 power company with an estimated 1.8 million customers, was reporting that 157,067 customers remained "affected" Friday morning.

On social media, Consumers Energy noted that 371,000 homes and businesses the company serves lost power at some point since Tuesday night, making it one of the 10 most significant storms in company history.

But the company said it called in backup to help its crews, which were joined by contractors from across Michigan and seven states, including Missouri, New York and Tennessee

"We have now restored power to 211,000 Michigan homes and businesses following this week's severe weather, and crews today are continuing their around-the-clock work in communities all over the Lower Peninsula," Consumers Energy said in a statement Friday morning.

No heavy rains are in the forecast for southeast Michigan on Friday, though a stray shower or thunderstorm is possible, according to the Weather Channel. The forecast calls for a mix of clouds and sun with a high temperature of 86 degrees.