Thousands Lose Power As Storms Strike Metro Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ) - Thousands of homes and business are without power, and more outages are popping up, as a wave of gusty storms blows across metro Detroit.
As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, a spokesperson for DTE Energy said there were about 12,000 customers in the dark in Southeast Michigan. That's actually down from about 15,000 a little earlier, the spokesperson said, but that number grew to roughly 20,000 by 10 p.m.
Particularly hard-hit areas include Pontiac, near University between Opdyke and Joslyn Rd., where about 1,800 outages were reported. There are also hundreds of outages in Milford, as well the Grosse Pointe area, Birmingham and Bloomfield Township.
DTE says crews will be out this evening working to restore power by Thursday morning.
With heavy rains, keep an eye out for flooding on local freeways as well as surface streets.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Wayne County until 6:15 p.m., and a Flood Advisory was in effect for the same area until 7:45 p.m. Also, a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Monroe County until 7:15 p.m.
AccuWeather Meteorologist Dave Bowers said some damaging winds, along with hail and frequent cloud-to-ground lighting, hit Dearborn, Downtown Detroit and the Grosse Pointes.
The system has since weakened in that area, but Bowers said the server weather was flaring up to the south, in and around Downriver communities.
"So that area, they're the ones now that could be some damaging hail and some strong gusty winds along with some torrential downpours before this crosses the river," Bowers said, shortly before 6 p.m. "I think this is going to be the worst of it."
After that, he said, things should be quieting down for the evening and overnight hours in metro Detroit — although more showers and thunderstorms are on the way Thursday afternoon, and maybe into Friday.
Stay tuned to WWJ Newsradio 950 for the latest severe weather updates during traffic and weather, every 10 minutes on the 8s. See the live, local radar now at this link.
