DEARBORN, Mich. – High winds caused major power outages across the Metro Detroit area on Saturday. There was extensive damage in the Dearborn area.
“It could have came in my house, what do you think?” resident Altamimi Khayon said.
Scary and terrifying: That’s how Khayon described the moment a tree fell in front of his home on Coleman in Dearborn. It happened around 10 a.m. Saturday.
His daughter was getting into her car when the tree crashed.
“Thank God it fell to the other side and my family is alive right now,” Khayon said.
The large tree caused extensive damage. It ripped the concrete out of the ground, and it’s now blocking the street.
DTE vice president of distribution operations Ryan Stowe said this is just some of the damage in the area.
“We saw wind gusts over 60 mph across the territory,” Stowe said. “Right now, we’re sitting at about 120,000 customers without power. Most of those outages came in around noon or so.”
Now, crews are working around the clock to try to get things back up and running as fast as they can.
“We have a total of about 1,500 people working in the field, doing all types of jobs and doing damage assessments as well,” Stowe said. “It takes an army to do all of this restoration work.”
DTE officials said they have about 500 crews coming from out of state to help out with the recovery process. They’re hoping to have about 80%-90% of customers restored by the end of the weekend.