PONTIAC, Mich. – Wednesday was a chilly night to be out of power for nearly nine hours, but a Pontiac family said DTE made a big mistake that left them in that position.
Utility trucks pulled up Wednesday night and, after about an hour of hooking everything back up, the family has power. But at one point, DTE told them they'd be in the cold until Thursday afternoon.
The family said DTE claims it was a company error that had DTE showing up at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and cutting the power to the home. Inside were pets, adults and five children.
"I had come home, and they were all sitting out in front of my house," Gerald Armstrong said.
Armstrong was told the utility was cutting their power because they had been stealing power for two months.
"That's impossible," Armstrong said. "We were caught up on our bill protection plan."
After multiple calls to DTE, it was discovered that an error had been made back in September, when the family had gotten behind on its bills, but had then paid up. DTE originally told the family that crews wouldn't be there to fix the problem until Thursday, so Armstrong called Local 4 News.
"When I threatened to call you guys, I kept getting the runaround," Armstrong said. "When I called you guys, we got somewhere."
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