Storm Friday 5 Sept 2014 upto 75 MPH

[gar]

140909-2110 EDT

Last Friday 5 September 2014 we had a mostly wind storm, some rain. with peak gusts of 75 MPH. DTE, about 2,000,000 customers, had 375,000 loose power. In my immeadiate neighborhood there was one group of over 500 customers out, another between 100 and 500, and miscellaneous small outages. I did not loose power.

As of tonight DTE has restored 365,000 customers, and in my neighborhod there are still about 10 without power. Thus, considering the magnitude of the problem, largely trees or branches, the restoration has gone quickly.

More and more of my neighbors are getting backup generation capability, as they should. A large system is not required for survival.

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[ActionDave]

Hang in there gar, winter is coming and things should settle down.

 

[mgookin]

Around here that's a nice breeze

It's all relative. If normally 40mph would be your strongest wind in a region during any given season, that 75 mph is going to lay some timber on your infrastructure, buildings, etc.

Here that would just clean out the palm fronds and bounce some furniture from the pool decks into the pools, move some trash cans around, etc. Summer storms can have up to 80-90 mph winds. A cat 1-2 storm around here is just an excuse to drink. Cat 3 gets my attention only because it can change to a 4 or 5 if the weather man gets it wrong (imagine that).

Hope your town gets restoration without any loss of life or property. Interestingly people die more from clean-up than from storms (chain saw injuries, fall off roof, etc.)