More than 330,000 energy customers were without power early Wednesday after severe storms swept across Michigan on Tuesday, sending temperatures soaring above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday.
The National Weather Service had issued severe storm warnings for Oakland, Washtenaw, Wayne, southern Sanilac, eastern Huron, Jackson, Livingston and Lapeer counties.
DTE Energy reported 202,374 electric customers without power early Wednesday as a result of the storms. Storm reports showed wind speeds reaching 75 mph in Roseville, 58 mph in Troy, 67 mph in White Lake and 63 mph in Flint. Temperatures were expected to be in the 70s overnight.
Consumers Energy reported 132,020 customers without power Wednesday morning, compared to about 153,000 customers late Tuesday as storms battered the region. The outages stretched from Upper and Central Michigan and scattered across the southern part of Lower Michigan. Late Tuesday, Consumers said many outages were in Kent, Ionia, Montcalm, Gladwin, Midland, Bay and Clare counties.
Metro Detroit reached a high of 94 at 2:59 p.m. Tuesday, weather service records show. The daily record is 98, set in 1948. Tuesday’s low was estimated at 73. Northeast Fenwick in Montcalm County experienced winds of 60 mph, the weather service reported.
The weather service also issued a heat warning for Metro Detroit on Tuesday.
“It won’t last long,” said Freitag of the heat warning. “There’s really nothing special about it.”
Outside of Metro Detroit, a thunderstorm earlier in the day knocked out power to 100,000 homes and businesses in northern Michigan and the Grand Rapids area, according to Brian Wheeler, a media relations representative for Consumers Energy. Consumers Energy employees were expected to work through the night to restore power, focusing on assessing damage and serving key customers with more than 300 employees. Workers are working up to 16 hours at a time and will continue to work until power is fully restored, Wheeler said.
Check outage status at ConsumersEnergy.com/OutageCenter.
In the Detroit metropolitan area, several communities are offering cooling centers. The City of Detroit said the Patton Recreation Center at 2301 Woodmere Street, the Heilmann Recreation Center at 19601 Brock Ave. and the Northwest Activities Center at 18100 Meyers Road are available as cooling centers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The city’s public libraries can also be used as cooling centers during normal hours.
“We want to make sure everyone in the city of Detroit has a safe place to go to escape the extreme heat,” Detroit Health Officer Denise Fair Razo said in a statement. “It’s incredibly important that everyone takes extra precautions and checks on their loved ones, neighbors and pets in the coming days.”
School districts in the region are also taking steps to protect students from the heat as classes began this week.
On Monday, the Detroit Public Schools Community District dismissed students from class three hours early due to high temperatures. This step will be repeated on Tuesday.
All DPSCD schedules are expected to return to normal operations on Wednesday, the district said.
Southfield Public Schools ended classes early on Monday but closed their schools on Tuesday because of the heat.
“The safety and well-being of our students and staff is our top priority and we are taking this precautionary measure to ensure everyone is safe during these difficult conditions,” district officials said in a statement on their website.
The weather forecast calls for temperatures to rise above 30 degrees on Wednesday and fall to around 27 degrees on Thursday. Friday will be hot again, with highs expected to reach 30 degrees, before temperatures drop to just over 27 degrees on Saturday.
The weather service had recorded fewer days with 32 degrees Celsius than normal before the heat wave began, Freitag said. This week’s hotter weather could bring the tally closer to normal record values, he said.
Editor Charles E. Ramirez contributed
