Over 150K Michigan residents out of power as bad weather continues
The National Weather Service predicted that more wintry weather will hit Michigan throughout the day Monday
Scores of Michigan residents woke up without power for a sixth-straight day Tuesday morning amid brutal winter weather.
Over 150,000 homes and businesses remain without power as of 10:40 a.m. ET Tuesday from last week's ice storm coupled with high winds, according to PowerOutage.US.
This comes as the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that more wintry weather, leading to more ice accumulations, will hit parts of the state throughout the day Tuesday.
Mitch Wengrzynowicz uses plastic to try and keep rooms warm as his home lost power in Dearborn, Mich., Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Michigan is shivering through extended power outages caused by one of the worst ice storms in decades. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya / AP Images)
WINTER STORM CANCELS HUNDREDS MORE FLIGHTS ACROSS COUNTRY
The NWS office in Detroit tweeted that "accumulating snowfall was possible across Michigan, pending the track of a low pressure system."
Officials also urged residents to "monitor future updates as this system has the markings for a major winter storm."
Meanwhile, crews have been working around the clock to restore power following the powerful storm last week which created one of the biggest outages utility company, DTE Energy, has ever seen.
DTE Energy spokeswoman Cindy Hecht said it was topped only by the March 2017 wind storm that knocked out power to about 800,000 customers.
DTE Energy reported nearly 3,000 downed wires and close to 500,000 customers without power right after the storm hit, according to a summary of the storm from the NWS.
After high winds on Thursday, more than 600,000 DTE customers were left in the dark at the storm’s peak.
"For many metro Detroit communities, an ice storm with this widespread of a footprint has not been observed since April 2003," the NWS said.
WINTER STORM GROUNDS NEARLY 1,000 FLIGHTS, KNOCKS OUT POWER FOR THOUSANDS
Even though there are still tens of thousands of outages, more than 95% of DTE customers impacted by the storm have been restored by Monday morning, the company said.
"Crews will continue working around the clock to restore the remaining storm-impacted customers, as well as all other customers that have experienced recent outages," DTE tweeted.
Meanwhile, the state's other main utility, CMS Energy unit Consumers Energy, tweeted Monday morning that it's finally "down to the most frustrating part of a big storm event. The small outages."
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Mitch Wengrzynowicz sits under a blanket as his home lost power in Dearborn, Mich., Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Michigan is shivering through extended power outages caused by one of the worst ice storms in decades. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya / AP Images)
Following the storm, the company prioritized circuits that have emergency services like hospitals on them. From there, it move on to the circuits that have the most people out on them, Consumers Energy tweeted.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMS | CMS ENERGY CORP. | 59.35 | -1.14 | -1.88% |
| DTE | DTE ENERGY CO. | 109.53 | -1.61 | -1.45% |
"Smaller circuits are just as important to us and the jobs on those smaller circuits take just as much time to complete," the utility tweeted. "Sometimes they can be more challenging to restore, depending on how far poles are from the road and how much wire needs to be restrung."
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.