DETROIT — More than 400,000 homes and businesses were without power across Michiganafter severe storms swept through the state Friday night, bringing strong wind gusts and heavy rain.
DTE Energy spokeswoman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said about 350,000 of its customers were without power as of 11 p.m. and he said that number is expected to climb throughout the night.
Strong wind gusts caused more than 1,000 downed power lines across the DTE area.
Given the size of the storm, DTE said customers could be affected by outages for several days.
About 73,000 Consumers Energy customers lost power.
Heavy rain and strong winds of up to 70 mph, caused the outages and crews are assessing damage. No restoration estimates are available yet.
Consumers Energy spokeswoman Deb Dodd said the hardest hit county in the company's coverage area is Kalamazoo County, with over 28,000 customers out.
"We have hundreds of downed power lines," Dodd said. "One thing we're asking people to do is to stay at least 25 feet away from anything that looks downed."
Dodd said workers are also reporting dozens of knocked over trees and limbs.
St. Clair Shores Police Officer Trevor Head said the department has been receiving calls "nonstop" to report damage. Head said he's received several reports of downed lines and trees, as well as blown transformers.
"It wasn't so much the rain causing issues, as it was the wind," he said.
National Weather Service meteorologist Sara Schultz said the service has received multiple reports of damage across southeast Michigan.
"We had 50 to 70 mph winds come through, causing numerous trees down, large limbs down, power lines, and lots of people without power," she said.
In Lansing, the Lansing Board of Water & Light reported more than 2,300 customers without power. Late Friday night that number stood at about 600.
"This is probably the worst storm we've seen in several decades," Eaton Rapids City Manager Jon Stoppels said.
Authorities there were asking residents to stay off the roads because emergency crews were being hampered by traffic, including gawkers.
More storms could hit the area overnight, according to the National Weather Service.
Contributing: Ken Palmer and Dean Holden of the Lansing State (Mich.) Journal
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