Storms cause widespread power outages, downed trees in City of Plymouth

PLYMOUTH, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) — The City of Plymouth sustained substantial damage during the storms. Leaders say the northwest section of the city was hit hardest, with multiple power lines and trees down.

"Well, my neighbor called me at three in the morning saying that there's a disaster that's happened," said Plymouth resident Mary Rapai.

Residents living in Plymouth's north end felt the brunt of the high winds, which at one point reached more than 70 miles per hour.

"I don't care how young the tree is, I don't think they're going to come through unscathed, but I could be wrong," Raipai said.

"No tree is sacred to any given wind, regardless of what condition it's in. So it's, it's, it was the wind, and it was not so much the force of the wind, but the twisting winds, that's what really causes the damage," said Art Guzman, owner of Art's Residential Tree Service.

The City of Plymouth asks that you bundle up branches or other debris in your yard and leave them by the curb if you have them.

Crews are working extra hours to clean everything up, as is DTE, which said more than 300,000 customers lost power from The Thumb down to the Ohio border.

"This is not necessarily lifting a limb off of a line and restoring power. You've got broken poles, you have broken infrastructure. Replacing that infrastructure can take a little bit of time," said Brian Calka, vice president of Distribution Operations for DTE Energy.

Many customers were spared from being left in the dark because of their smart grid technology.

So far this year, DTE has installed 250 so-called "reclosers"

"Individuals here can actually press buttons and operate the devices in the field, so where we have damage, they can open and close some of these devices and reroute power to energize a large percentage of those customers before the heavy lifting in terms of the work actually occurs to replace the pole," Calka said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, DTE restored power to more than 169,000 impacted customers. The utility company expects to restore more than 70% of customers by the end of Wednesday, 90% by the end of Thursday, and the remaining customers by Friday.

If you see any downed power lines, stay at least 50 feet away from them and report them immediately through the DTE app or website or by calling 800-477-4747.