Hundreds Of Thousands Without Power In Metro Detroit After Ice Storm

METRO DETROIT — More than 460,000 DTE customers were without power Thursday morning after an icy winter storm rolled through the area, according to the company's outage map. Consumers Energy reported another 197,000 without power across the state.

Matt Paul, the executive vice president of distribution operations at DTE, said Thursday morning some areas in southeast Michigan saw three quarters of an inch of ice, a level they haven't seen in nearly 50 years.

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The ice adds "tremendous weight" to power lines, tree limbs and other equipment, a combination that causes an extreme amount of damage, Paul said.

"We’ve seen very large tree limbs come down, very large trees topple over a significant number of our wires and equipment have come down, several utility poles snapped with the weight," Paul said.

A half an inch of radial ice on one span of wire can add over 1,000 pounds to that wire, or about the weight of a baby grand piano, Paul said.

"We know how frustrating it can be, but we do want to assure people and all of our customers that we’re going to continue to work around the clock until each and every customer is restored," Paul said.

Paul said the utility company has over 1,000 line workers and 400 workers from nearby states working to restore power. The utility also expects additional line workers to come in from other states Thursday afternoon.

Paul said the utility did not provide an accurate restoration time until crews asses the damage Thursday morning. Paul said it will be "several hours" before a timeline would be given.

Highs in the metro Detroit area on Thursday are expected to hit around 40 degrees, which could melt some of the ice from Wednesday's storm, according to the National Weather Service.

However, strong winds with gusts reaching up to 30 miles per hour are expected to hang around, the weather service said. The strong winds could even cause more power outages in the area, forecasters warned.