Dive Brief:
- A significant power outage was reported in downtown Detroit on Tuesday morning, according to the Detroit Free Press. About 100 public buildings served by the city's Public Lighting Department lost power while many non-public buildings still had it, a DTE spokeswoman told Utility Dive in an interview.
- Several important buildings and services were affected, including fire stations, schools and universities, the People Mover (one of Detroit's public transportation services), the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice courthouse (where the Bob Bashara murder trial was underway), and the Joe Louis Arena (where the Detroit Redwings—a National Hockey League team—play).
- While it was not yet clear what caused the outage at press time, the problem occurred on the Public Lighting Department's system, not DTE Energy's, a DTE spokeswoman said.
Dive Insight:
Here is a link to DTE Energy's outage map, which should update every 15 minutes as the situation unfolds. At press time, DTE's map showed a relatively dense scatter of outages across the city, each indicating 99 or less customers affected. Stay tuned as the story develops—we'll post updates below.
This is far from the first time this has happened, with the last major outage in Detroit having taken place in September 2013. The situation was similar—a problem on the Public Lighting Department's system caused several outages at important public buildings downtown. (Notably, last year's outage interrupted Bob Bashara's murder trial—making this most recent outage the second time Bashara's trial has been halted by a power outage.) Last year's outage was "caused by extreme heat, cable failure, and routine maintenance—all combining causing system overload," according to a spokesman for the Detroit Mayor's Office, as reported by CBS Detroit.
Update: The Detroit Press Office has issued a statement, according to The Detroit News: "The city's public lighting grid suffered a major cable failure that has caused the entire grid to lose power at approximately 10:30 this morning. The outage is affecting all customers on the PLD grid. We have isolated the issue and are working to restore power as soon as possible."