The Detroit Free Press reported that 678,000 Michigan homes and businesses were without power due to the damaging storm that swept across the Midwest on Sunday. When I drove down to Howell on Wednesday to visit my grandchildren, I almost did not get a hotel room for the night.
The hotel, a Holiday Inn Express on the west side of Howell along Interstate 96, has been full due to families who were still without power. Then, too, crews from the companies that were working to restore power were staying at the hotel, too.
Earlier this week there were reports that said it would take a longer time than usual to get Michigan locations back on the grid because so many crews had been called in to help in the tornado stricken areas of Indiana and Illinois. There is no doubt that the aging power grid is no match for these big storms that take out poles and lines with an increasing frequency.
The best advice that I heard this week was the reminder to always report your own outage. Just because your neighborhood is out doesn't mean that someone has called to report the outage. Each homeowner should make a call and report the power loss. That's kind of counter to the neighborhood understandings of twenty years ago, but it is good advice to remember as these storms pop up more frequently.
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