Power Outages in Michigan: Recovery and Outage Credit Updates

Following severe weather in Mid- and Southeast Michigan last week, a significant number of people are still without power. At the peak of the outages on Friday, DTE Energy reported that over 200,000 of its customers were without electricity. Similarly, Consumers Energy also had approximately 200,000 customers without power. This resulted in a total of more than 400,000 outages statewide.

As of Sunday, around 50,000 DTE customers in Southeast Michigan were still experiencing power outages. This followed reports of seven tornadoes hitting the state on Thursday night. By Monday morning, the number of outages had decreased to just over 19,000, with specific attention given to addressing larger clusters of outages in Monroe County.

According to the DTE outage map, the areas most heavily affected by the storm-related outages included Ann Arbor, Livonia, Ypsilanti, Belleville, Farmington, Farmington Hills, and Redford.

Consumers Energy mobilized crews from Kentucky, Alabama, and Pennsylvania to assist in Michigan. They announced that over 1,000 line workers and support teams would work continuously to restore power.

By Sunday evening, Consumers Energy reported that approximately 52,000 customers were still without power. By the following Monday morning, this number had decreased to more than 33,000.

"Our crews worked tirelessly overnight to make significant progress restoring power and we appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to clean up the mess made by high winds and three confirmed tornadoes," said Scott McIntosh, one of Consumers Energy's Officers in Charge for the storm in a news release. "Restoring power is our No. 1 job and our lineworkers will continue putting in 16-hour shifts, around-the-clock until every last community is restored."

DTE Energy recently introduced revised Service Quality and Reliability Standards, as directed by the Michigan Public Service Commission on March 24, 2023. These standards include a $35 credit for customers affected by prolonged power outages. An additional $35 per day of ongoing outage is provided once the initial qualification is met.

More information about these credits can be found here for DTE customers. Consumers Energy also offers a similar outage credit program, with further details available here.

It's completely normal to feel angry at some point in life. Some people are better at dealing with anger than others. Some people are just angrier than others. And it turns out,  some states are angrier than others.

Michigan ranked number 10 on Best Life's angriest states in America survey. They created an Anger Index that consisted of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's most recent Fatality Analysis Reporting System and info by Auto Insurance Center, to determine the amount of each state's fatal accidents involving road rage.

Best Life also used the FBI's hate crime data to analyze hate crimes per capita, which they say is often motivated by anger. Their results showed that, on average, America isn't all that angry. But Michigan made the top 10 along with states from the West, Midwest, Northeast, and South.

Here are the 10 top angriest states in America.

Michigan ranked number 10 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 33.08. Though Michigan’s fatalities caused by road rage is only 0.1 percent, its hate crimes per capita is at 7.7 percent.

Massachusetts ranked number 9 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 37.39. Toxic internet comments were a part of the study and this state scored high with 6.8 percent. Massachusetts hate crimes per capita is at 5.63. Lower than Michigan's in the number 10 spot.

New Jersey ranked number 8 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 42.83 percent. New Jersey also made it onto Alcohol.org's angriest states list.

Connecticut ranked number 7 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 43.08 percent. The state has 5.7 percent of fatalities caused by road rage with a low road rage fatalities per capita at 0.4 percent.

Washington ranked number 6 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 46.90 percent. They also served up a high toxic internet comments percentage of 6.8 according to the Best Life study.

Vermont ranked number 5 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 55.34 percent. Though the fatalities caused by road rage are at zero percent. The state is at 5.29 percent hate crimes per capita.

Indiana ranked number 4 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 64.20. The state also came in with high percentages with fatalities caused by road rage at 10 percent and hate crimes per capita at 1.11 percent.

South Carolina ranked number 3 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 70.42 percent. The state's high toxic internet comments percentage was at 9.8 percent according to the Best Life study.

Colorado ranked number 2 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 70.42. Their road rage per capita is low at 0.9 percent. However, the study shows that fatalities caused by road rage in Colorado are at 9.5%. 

Alabama ranked number 1 on Best Life's Angriest States in America list with an anger index score of 100. The only 100 anger index score on the list. At the time of the study Alabama had limited data on hate crimes per capita.