A tree landed on a truck along 28 Mile Road last week. Thousands in the area were without power through mid-week. Source photo by Matt December

Nearly five days worth of severe weather has caused several thousand residents in northern Macomb County to lose power. Several thousand residents in Bruce Township, Romeo and Washington Township have been without power for days following the last storm, but DTE Energy said some may have to wait until the weekend for their power to be turned back on.

“Since the first storm Friday night, there have been about 62,000 customers affected,” said Scott Simons, spokesman for DTE. “There are still about 23,000 customers without service in Macomb County.”

As of June 11 according to Simons, there were approximately 2,800 customers still without power in Washington Township, down from 3,500. In Bruce Township, there were approximately 500 customers affected with around 400 still without service. In Romeo there were 400 residents affected and most were still without electrical service.

Severe weather ravaged Michigan starting Friday night and recurring through Tuesday morning, according to Simons. He said winds in the area reached 80 miles per hour.

“The winds took down tree branches and entire trees. There were lighting strikes on electrical equipment as well as other types of equipment,” he said. Simons, who has been with DTE Energy for 17 years, said the time he remembers weather causing outages like this was almost 17 years ago.

“There was a storm back in 1991 that affected about 600,000 customers,” he said. “This is definitely in the top 10, as far as the number of storms that kept hitting us. I’ve never seen five days in row where we’ve had this kind of storm activity.”

In southeastern Michigan, approximately 375,000 customers were affected. As of June 11, Simons said there were still approximately 130,000 customers without power.

Simons said approximately 90 percent of DTE Energy customers should have power by the evening of June 12. However, some customers will still be waiting for power into the weekend.

Washington Township Supervisor Gary Kirsh said the township is trying to get residents in the area relief as soon as possible, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

“It is pretty wide spread. In some areas there is not just one pole they are finding; there are other problems,” he said. “The process to fixing the problems is actually finding these other issues and problems as they are coming up.”

Fire Chief Floyd Shotwell said there was damage both in Bruce Township and in Romeo, but most was in the township.

“Just south of 34 Mile Road, there was a bad wind that came through there. That was the strongest,” he said.

Shotwell said there were no major injuries or fires resulting from the weather in either Romeo or Bruce.