Powerful Storms Kill 1, Leave Hundreds of Thousands in the Dark

Powerful winds sheared off the tops of trees, downing about 2,500 power lines in DTE Energy and Consumers Energy territories. (Patch file photo)

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One man was electrocuted and power was knocked out to hundreds of thousands of residents as powerful thunderstorms rolled through southeast Michigan late Friday afternoon and early evening.

The fatality was of a Warren man in his 40s who died when he came across a power line in his back yard, The Detroit News reports, citing the Warren Police Department.

It doesn’t appear there were any other fatalities, but five Dearborn Heights residents were injured when high winds, gusting at times to 75 mph, picked up their tent at the St. Linus parish festival. The extent of their injuries is unclear.

When the winds kicked up, “everyone was holding on to whatever they could,” Mike Chartier, one of the people in the tent, told the Detroit News. “It happened so fast.”

The extent of their injuries is not clear.

• Outage maps: DTE Energy | Consumers Energy

More than 350,000 DTE Energy customers were still without power midday Saturday. At one point, 375,000 customers lost power, the utility said in a statement, the Detroit Free Press reports. In Wayne County, the area hardest hit by the storms, 180,000 customers lost electricity.

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Calling it the “10th most impactful storm in the company’s 111-year history,” the utility said it is bringing in 600 workers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New York and Tennessee to repair more than 2,000 lines downed in the powerful storms.

Most customers should see their power restored by Monday, but some are likely to be in the dark until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Besides Wayne County, other area counties with significnt outages included:

• Oakland, 70,000 outages
• Macomb, 30,000 outages
• Washtenaw, 30,000 outages
• Livingston, 15,000 outages

About 77,000 Consumers Energy were affected, and 46,000 Consumers Energy customers were still without power at 1 p.m. Saturday. Hard-hit customers in Kalamazoo, Jackson and Battle Creek could have to wait until Monday before power is restored.

Debra Dodd, spokeswoman for Consumers Energy, said that no area of the utility’s territory was spared. About 500 power lines were downed. Customers still without power at noon included those in the following counties:

• Genesee, 4,942 outages
• Livingston, 705 outages
• Oakland, 616 outages
• Washtenaw, 565 outages

The storm dumped .59 inches of rain at the Detroit Metro Airport – bringing September’s total so far to 2.09 inches at that location. So far this year, 29.5 inches of rainfall have been recorded at the airport, which is 6.54 inches above normal, but just below the total of 31.03 inches at this time last year.

There were no confirmed reports of tornadoes, and the damage that occurred was the result of straight-line winds, according to meteorologist at the National Weather Service reporting station at White Lake.

However, some residents of hard-hit Brownstown Township told The Detroit News they heard the roar associated with a tornado.

“It sounded like a train, then it got quiet as hell. Then we got suction, you could feel the suction, and that limb came right down through the window,” said Jerry Koss.

His neighbor, Anthony Arminiak, also thinks it was a tornado that collapsed a brick wall on his garage. He and his wife, Ann, were watching television when the storm hit.

“It was a roar and I said, ‘Ann, that’s a tornado, we’ve got to get into the basement,’” Arminiak said.

Meteorologist Deb Elliott at the White Lake station said southeast MIchigan residents will get a pleasant respite from storms with stable temperatures in the 70s for the next couple of days. But batton down the hatches. Another intense storm system is moving over the Great Plains toward Michigan.

“It could make for a very crazy week,” Elliott told The Detroit News.