Update:
DTE says full restoration of power to the city could take 24 hours, according to CBS Detroit.
Dive Summary:
- Just when it seemed things could not possibly get any worse for Detroit, the city lost power to several critical facilities around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, the Detroit News reports.
- City Hall, the Cobo Center, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, the People Mover and Wayne State University all reportedly lost power.
- The cause and extent of the outages are not yet known. Here is a link to DTE Energy's outage map, which should update as the situation unfolds.
- Robert Warfield, a spokesman for the Detroit Mayor's Office, said, “Some institutional public lighting customers are experiencing service interruption caused by extreme heat, cable failure, and routine maintenance — all combining causing system overload. The Public Lighting Department is asking customers, once power is restored, to only turn on lights […] [and] not to use air conditioners or other non-essential appliances.”
- DTE Energy spokesman Scott Simons claims a cable failure caused the outage, though he was not yet sure where that occurred, according to CBS Detroit. This is Detroit Public Lighting's problem, Simons said, but DTE will help the city. Simons indicated DTE was looking to prevent further outages by reducing load.
From the article:
The street lights around the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center were inoperable and some media outlets reported that power has been knocked out from the People Mover.
Power was lost at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and the courthouse was evacuated about 1:30 p.m., interrupting testimony during the infamous Robert Bashara murder case. At 1:50 p.m., court officials annouced that courthouse would be closed for the remainder of the day.