Posted on Thu, Jun 28, 2012 : 9:40 p.m.
Power restored in Ann Arbor after fire causes outage for 6,000
By Cindy Heflin
- Previous article: Power out for 6,000 DTE customers in Ann Arbor
The power outage knocked out traffic lights and caused long backups like this one on South Industrial in Ann Arbor
Austerberry said DTE cut power to the entire area after the fire as a precaution. He said what caused the equipment failure is not clear, but it was not related to the extreme heat in the area, which sent temperatures soaring to 100 degrees and above.
The hot conditions have caused some problems for the utility, however. He said about 16,000 customers were without power due to overload issues from the heat. However, he noted that’s less than 1 percent of DTE’s customers.
The Ann Arbor power outage snarled traffic at the end of the workday and delayed Ann Arbor Transportation Authority buses.
Comments
swcornell
Sat, Jun 30, 2012 : 6:12 p.m.
Wonder why my Wednesday power outage wasn't reported? I live in Northfield Township, but have an Ann Arbor mailing address. I guess AnnArbor.com takes the Ann Arbor part seriously. They only report things in the city of Ann Arbor, forget the rest of the county!
jns131
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 5:21 p.m.
I think S Industrial goes down in power more times then any other part of Ann Arbor ever. I know people in this area and every time I talk to them they say, we are without power, again. I guess it goes without saying, DTE needs to step it up.
John Hritz
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 1:40 p.m.
These sorts of events are often an opportunity to exercise your emergency management chops. Each football Saturday when the game is at home, there are officers directing traffic. Certainly one reason they are used is because of the large amount of pedestrian traffic on game days. I've long wondered what sort of calamity would have to befall the city to have officers directing traffic in other cases. Yesterday's power failure wasn't an emergency, but its hard to find a better evacuation training exercise.
Ricebrnr
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 1:13 p.m.
Thank you DTE and especially AAFD for suiting up in the 100 degree weather and knocking this down. I had my AC kick in just as I stepped back in the house.
bj
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 12:34 p.m.
John Austerberry should get his story straight power was partially restored but some of the power to the local hotels and gas stations was not restored until 5:45 am Friday and DTE would only issue bogus time lines for its return
Sophia
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 10:37 a.m.
One of the buildings affected by the outage was the Dialysis Unit on the corner of South Industrial and Eisenhower. The power went out at 3:35 p.m. The patients were either sent home to return on Friday for a make-up session, or sent to the UM Main Hospital Dialysis Unit. When the power went out about 9 people were on machines. Staff used hand cranks to return the blood in the dialyzers (about a pint) to the patients. Needles were left in place until a determination was made as to whether the outage was going to be long term.
alarictoo
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 3:32 p.m.
This would seem to be an operation where a dependable generator would be a must-have.
A2Frenchman
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 9:18 a.m.
Wow that's scary.. Glad I'm not in Ann Arbor right now ;)
linuxtuxguy
Fri, Jun 29, 2012 : 1:50 a.m.
Here are some pictures from the scene before power was restored: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linuxtuxguy/sets/72157630335763742/
Ann English
Sat, Jun 30, 2012 : 12:19 a.m.
Good photos with the captions. Text alone couldn't tell the story. I've seen substations in other places without knowing they were called substations; I only knew what they were for: supplying electricity to the surrounding area. The firefighter photo following the fire fills in where the journalists just wrote, "Firefighters used carbon dioxide to put out the fire, for water would have damaged the electrical equipment." The carbon dioxide was inside those fire extinguishers they were holding. I see the bird in two photos; it looks very dead up there.