Comments on: DTE Outage Affects 3,000 in Ann Arbor

By: Matt H

Matt H — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:12:01 +0000

Michigan Messenger article: "As Wayne County freezes, emergency officials pass the buck" "The [Homeland Security] department’s director, James Buford, told Michigan Messenger on Monday that he was on vacation. He acknowledged that that he had not been in touch with DTE Energy about the power outages. He said that he had not directed his department to begin damage assessment activities nor ordered any warming stations opened. Buford also said he did not know how many people were without power." link

By: Mary Morgan

Mary Morgan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:10:32 +0000

A spokeswoman for the Washtenaw chapter of the American Red Cross emailed us tonight (9 p.m. Monday, Dec. 29) and said that the chapter collaborated with the Salvation Army yesterday and today to provide meals to people without power. She said they’ll “play it by ear, meal by meal” on Tuesday, based on how many people are still without power. The meals are served at the Chidester Place Senior residence on 330 Chidester St. in Ypsilanti and at Avalon Housing, 603 W. Huron St. in Ann Arbor. If necessary, she said meals will also be served in front of the Red Cross chapter from an emergency rescue vehicle. The chapter is located at 4624 Packard Road.

By: Spencer Thomas

Spencer Thomas — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:26:31 +0000

Personal observations this afternoon: several blocks west of Packard/State appear to be still without power, including Fingerle Lumber, and the businesses west of Packard from the State intersection north (to Madison?) At least yesterday afternoon, Jimmy John’s at Packard and Hill was making sandwiches in the “dark”, calculating totals on a hand calculator. I presume they weren’t taking credit cards, though.

Also, south of Ellsworth on Platt, the wind took down at least 6 poles, snapping them off at the base. As I was leaving the dog park at 4:30, a truck with new poles was arriving on site. At about the same time, the wind was peaking about 30mph with gusts to 45. I would not want to be the guy up in the basket at that time!

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:34:17 +0000

I did a little bit of map processing to come up with this:

http://bit.ly/dvyv

showing progress overnight (11pm last night to about 1pm today). Large parts of Washtenaw County have had no visible repair progress per the DTE maps – to be fair, that is in part because they report only very broad bands of outage density so they might have fixed 1000 homes and it wouldn’t be visible to the maps.

By: Leah Gunn

Leah Gunn — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:47:25 +0000

Once again the “Bermuda Triangle” (see old AU comments) went out, while others around us had power. This is the southwest quadrant of Packard & Stadium. We learned from the ice storm last year and went immediately to a motel. Kensington Court allowed us a late checkout when the lights came on at about 12:30 P.M. today (Monday) and only charged us for one night. I saw no news about anybody helping people, such as opening any schools for shelter or anything.

By: Karen Moorhead

Karen Moorhead — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:19:52 +0000

I hate to bring up bad thoughts, and my heart goes out to those without power and I hope the power comes on very very soon. I would be most concerned about pipes bursting if it get extremely cold. Generators would be in order to protect your home or if you have a Prius: http://tinyurl.com/83ep86

By: B

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:27:08 +0000

Still without power at 1:30pm on Monday…what a pain!

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:25:58 +0000

We’d heard from two Ann Arbor households without power this morning via Twitter. Ben’s comment [5] brought the total to three households out of DTE’s early morning count of 23 who were without power in Ann Arbor. Based on that, we followed up with DTE, which apologized for the earlier erroneous counts. Updated above (and elsewhere) is the latest information that we believe is accurate.

By: Ben Calhoun

Ben Calhoun — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:55:10 +0000

I am in Ann Arbor and still don’t have power at 9 am on Monday!
Thanks DTE for forgetting about me and my pets.
You won’t even answer the phone!

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:45:43 +0000

Duh, re-read last paragraph about Red Cross and Washtenaw Co. That’s what I get for not seeing the update. Thanks for the additional reporting.