A dangerous gale on the Detroit subway caused thousands of people to lose power over the weekend, and communities across Michigan are still cleaning up the damage.

FOX 2-A dangerous gale in the Detroit subway caused thousands of people to lose power over the weekend, and communities across Michigan are still cleaning up the damage. The gusts reached tropical storm level, affecting the residents of the Detroit metropolitan area such as Christopher Poole.

"It's too inconvenient. I have newborn babies. I have to make sure that they don't get cold or the food spoils because the refrigerator is not working," he said.  

Poole is not alone.

"We have seen a total of approximately 160,000 customers affected," said Ryan Stowe, DTE's vice president of distribution operations. "We saw power cuts from the tip of the thumb to Monroe. So that wind incident caused problems for the entire system."

Some of the worst-hit areas are in southeastern Michigan.

"The hardest-hit areas are in western Wayne and southern Wayne County, with some of the strongest gusts of 65 miles per hour," he said.

Even before the storm, DTE had already developed a plan to deal with power outages.

"We are observing this weather pattern, so we started to reach out and mobilize people," Stowe said. "We brought about 650 linemen from our area."

The force behind the wind knocked down the trees and damaged the wires

"In the southern part of Wayne County, we saw more utility poles and broken wires," he said. "In other areas, there is a small tree on the wires, and some wires go down."

DTE dispatched a team to conduct a loss assessment.

As of Monday afternoon, DTE stated that 90% of the outages had been restored, and officials stated that they hope to see the vast majority of the remaining outages restored by the end of Monday.

DTE stated that it is also working to trim more trees to reduce the impact of future storms.

Related: DTE Gas customers will see a US$84 million interest rate hike next year

"DTE has been actively following our enhanced tree pruning program and announced an additional $70 million in expenditure earlier this year to help speed up and complete the process faster," he said.

When DTE is committed to power restoration, they want residents to be careful of any wires they might see on the ground and keep at least 20 feet away-and assume that every wire that is shot down is energized at 800-477-4747.

For DTE outage map, please click here.

Do not publish, disseminate, adapt or redistribute this material. ©2021 FOX TV Station