Severe storms tore through Southeast Michigan late Wednesday night, knocking out power to more than 80,000 DTE Energy customers and forcing schools across Livingston, Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties to close today. The overnight storms carried winds of 60 to 70 mph, 2-inch hail, torrential rain and frequent lightning, leaving downed trees, flooded roads and a long morning of cleanup across Metro Detroit.
Here is what makes this more than a routine closings list. For thousands of families, this is the second time in a single week that the weather has upended the school schedule, and the outage fits a pattern that keeps repeating across the region. Below is the latest on closings and power, how to ride out the outage safely, and what you may actually be owed if the lights stay off.
What happened overnight
The region took two rounds of storms. The National Weather Service clocked winds around 67 mph near the Livingston County airport, with one meteorologist estimating gusts closer to 70 mph, while Macomb County saw 45 to 60 mph. Heavy trees were uprooted in communities like Center Line, Warren and Madison Heights, and a stretch of I-94 near Gratiot flooded so badly that crews used plow trucks to push the water off the road before it reopened for the commute. As of 6:30 a.m. today, DTE’s map showed close to 83,000 customers in the dark.
Which schools are closed and why
Districts and individual schools across all four counties called off classes, most citing storm damage or power outages, with a few pointing to building problems. For many students, this is the first full day off of the new school year, which for some began just over a week ago.
The whiplash week nobody is connecting
This is the angle worth pausing on. These same storms are the violent end of the heat that has hammered the area all week. Detroit’s largest district had already dismissed students early twice in recent days because of extreme heat, and now the humidity that fueled that heat helped power the storms that closed schools outright…