WARREN, Mich. – Extreme heat knocked out power to roughly 5,000 DTE Energy customers in Warren after the strain on the electrical system caused equipment at a substation to fail.
The outage shuttered businesses and left residents with no relief — inside or out.
John Fitzgerald was among those left sweating through the night. He said the temperature inside his Warren home matched the heat outside.
“Yeah, I’ve been sitting out here — it’s too hot,” Fitzgerald said. “Power’s been out since 8 p.m. They told me it would be on at 3 in the morning. No power coming. It was miserable.”
Repairs stretched into the afternoon
Fitzgerald said he resorted to putting wet rags on his head and did not sleep. Power was not restored to his home until noon the following day.
“DTE going around checking — it’s 12 o’clock in the afternoon and we’re just now getting power,” he said.
DTE Operations Manager Jerry Tullio acknowledged repairs can vary widely in length.
“Restoring power can take some time — varying length of time on the complexity of the repair,” Tullio said.
DTE says grid is holding up
Despite the scattered outages, Tullio said crews have responded quickly and the broader grid has held up under the heat.
“Overall, the grid is responding well to the heat so far. We’ve had a couple of scattered power outages due to the heat — our crews have been able to respond to that safely and immediately to restore power,” Tullio said.
DTE said it hardened its systems ahead of summer and is now monitoring the grid around the clock, redirecting power as needed to prevent future outages. The company added that crews are staged and ready to respond over the holiday weekend if additional outages occur.