Many In Michigan Still Without Power After Winter Storm's Ice

 Eric Zerkel

Published: February 24, 2023

More than a million people were still without power in Michigan more than a day after Winter Storm Olive brought a destructive ice storm to the area.

U​tility providers in the southern part of the state were making slow progress on power restoration, but still, more than 710,000 customers were in the dark Friday morning. Because a customer can include multiple people in a single household, the amount of people affected by these outages is likely over a million.

T​he two major utility providers, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, had restored power to a combined 165,000 customers.

D​TE posted an update around noon saying crews were working to resolve another 200,000 outages.

(​MORE: How To Protect Your Family From Carbon Monoxide Poisoning As Temperatures Plummet

The two power providers expected to have power restored to most customers by Sunday, but with temperatures not expected to rise appreciably above freezing until Saturday, that means that many lower Michiganders will continue to shiver through another day.

T​here's also another winter storm headed toward the area, according to senior meteorologist Jon Erdman. Winter Storm Piper is expected to move into the area Sunday night with a little freezing rain, but mostly rain of the typical variety. But there's still a threat to the fragile power infrastructure.

"Strong winds are also expected with that storm that could pose a threat of downing more tree limbs or trees, including those weakened by the ice storm," Erdman said. "That could lead to additional power outages, unfortunately."

P​ower infrastructure across southern Michigan took a beating from Winter Storm Olive. A DTE official said early Thursday morning that they hadn't seen ice accumulations to these levels in decades and also said that there was an "extreme amount of damage" to power infrastructure there.

"​We saw ice amounts up to three-quarters of an inch throughout southeast Michigan and that's a level we haven't seen in nearly 50 years," Matt Paul, executive vice president of distribution operations at DTE said in a press briefing.

Long-term ice accumulation records aren't kept, so Paul's claim can't be confirmed, but it's clear that the ice caused significant issues across the region.

Paul said the combination of significant ice and strong winds from Olive caused "an extreme amount of damage," adding that it resulted in several of their utility poles being snapped by the weight. Consumers Energy said that over 8,000 lines were down across the state.

O​fficials warned people to avoid all of the downed power lines.

"​The biggest concern that we'll have now going into the future is people actually losing their lives to touching a downed power line," said Michigan State Police First Lt. Michael Shaw. "All you need to do is just get close enough to that wire ... and it's going to electrify you. And the chance of surviving that contact is pretty much zero."

That message was made tragically real by the death of Paw Paw, Michigan, volunteer firefighter Lt. Ethan Quillen. Quillen, 28, died responding to a downed power line in Van Buren County.

“The original power line was handled. A tree broke further down on the line and brought a more high voltage line down and when it happened, it snaked and there was no way to get away from it,” Fire Chief Jim DeGroff told WOODTV.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.