Seven Days After Ice Storm 11K DTE Customers in County Still Without Power –Who’s to Blame?

by P.D. Lesko

As of Feb. 28, DTE’s outage map showed that 5.24 percent of its customers in Washtenaw County–some 8,836 customers–are still without power as a result of a record-breaking Feb. 22 ice storm that knocked out power to over 600,000 of DTE’s 1.3 million Michigan customers. In Ann Arbor, City officials provided three small overnight warming shelters staffed by volunteers even though almost 70,000 people were without power and overnight temperatures dipped into the 20s. In Ypsilanti, the American Red Cross staffed a large overnight warming shelter at Eagle Crest Resort. The Ann Arbor Public Schools, which saw outages in 19 of its 32 buildings, closed school for all students, but did not offer up any of its buildings with heat to house residents, or any of the District’s 18,000 students.

Andrea Pierce works for the University of Michigan. Pierce said, “Why can’t the schools be opened for us? Seems to be a mockery, they’re sitting empty with lights and heat on, while we freeze.”

So who’s to blame for the prolonged power outages? DTE? Mother Nature? Climate change? Politicians?

Local elected officials are pointing the finger at DTE and its corporate greed to explain why County residents lost power for days as a result of the Feb. 22 ice storm.

Ann Arbor County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi blames DTE’s shareholders who collected $1 billion in dividends, money that, according to the County Commissioner, the energy giant should have invested in hardening its grid. Rabhi is a former Michigan State Rep. who was term-limited and then stepped back onto the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in 2022.

On his Facebook page, Rabhi posted lengthy, sometimes profane, comments about DTE’s inability to restore power to its Washtenaw County customers, including him: “What I am mad about is that DTE and Consumers made the conscious decision for years to suck a $1B profit each out of our pockets and send it to Wall Street instead of burying our power lines. They decided that instead of putting money into infrastructure, that it would be better to pay their CEO a $10M salary, spend millions on advertising to captive ratepayers, and dump millions into political advocacy.”

DTE is among 60 Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. that pay no federal income taxes, thanks to federal tax credits. DTE officials say the company has paid “more than $300 million in state and local taxes.” Furthermore, DTE officials say “those savings have been passed on to customers, reducing their bills by more than $20 million dollars per year.” DTE serves approximately 1.3 million customers in Michigan, so “$20 million in savings” passed on to those customers amounts to $15.38 per customer per year.

Lisa Bain is a retired U-M researcher. She responded to one of Rabhi’s Facebook posts in which he railed against DTE. “Maybe we should examine how all these other states regulate their utilities and learn something instead of just posting things on FB complaining and criticizing.”

The question of regulation is a political one. Campaign finance disclosures filed by U.S., state and local politicians reveal their cozy relationships with DTE’s Energy PAC. Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken $51,000 in campaign donations from the DTE Energy PAC, and since 2016 Ann Arbor’s U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell has taken $45,000 from the energy company’s PAC. Locally, Ann Arbor’s State Sen. Jeff Irwin and State Rep. Felicia Brabec have taken campaign donations from DTE. Ann Arbor Mayor Chris Taylor has accepted multiple campaign donations from DTE executives.

Mike Scozzari is a retired technical writer for the Ford Motor Company. Like Bain, Scozzari criticized Rabhi’s jabs at DTE’s handling of the enormous outage.

“…The utility companies were very good at handling this event as they usually are. The critics generally are individuals with no experience or training in handling emergencies of any sort. The equipment was placed so it could be deployed as needed when it was needed. Yousef Rabhi should stay within his professional bounds and let DTE do their job without his misdirection,” said Scozzari.

Ann Arbor Council member Dharma Akmon (D-Ward 4), likewise blamed DTE. She posted this on Feb. 25, three days after the ice storm: “@DTE_Energy , I just took a call from an elderly A2 resident, shivering in her apartment with her pets. Told she won’t have power until Mon. Having thousands of residents w/o power or heat for days is completely unacceptable. Invest your record profits in making this right.”

DTE officials weighed in and explained that burying power lines can keep them from being damaged by lightning, wind, freezing temperatures, and other weather-related issues. 

However, below-ground wires are still susceptible to damage. Digging for landscaping or construction work could damage the lines. Animals could also cause issues, and because the wires are underground, moisture can be a problem. Additionally, some parts of the power system, such as transformers, that are above ground can still be damaged by storms, leading to outages even with below-grade wires.

Officials from FEMA have said that while “installing wires costs more upfront, it saves money when overhead lines are damaged and need to be replaced. FEMA also noted that “maintaining underground lines is less expensive than overhead wires.”

Underground wires and overhead lines both come with pros and cons. Meanwhile, DTE is focusing on improving its infrastructure by “building new substations, upgrading poles and wires, installing new technologies, and trimming trees near wires.”

On Feb. 23 Council member Linh Song (D-Ward 5) used her Twitter account to congratulate the City’s Office of Sustainability for soliciting volunteers to staff shelters, and food donations for overnight shelters.

It’s unclear why the City of Ann Arbor didn’t open city buildings with power as warming centers, have city staff work at the community center warming shelters and overnight shelters, or why the City solicited donations of food as opposed to providing food, water and other necessities to displaced residents.

The City has an Emergency Management Team, and City Administrator Milton Dohoney is responsible for reviewing the City’s Emergency Management Plan annually. Prior to the storm, city officials had no plan to deal with carting away downed tree limbs. On Feb. 26, it was announced that residents who chopped up, bundled and hauled tree limbs to the street would have curbside removal.

Emily Wachsberger, a retired State of Michigan employee who lives in Ann Arbor, posted on Facebook about her family’s efforts to stay warm: “It’s been since Wednesday around 4pm that we’ve been without power. We are lucky to have hot water and the house is holding out at 48 degrees F/8.89 degrees C for the most part. We’ve been buying wood to have a fire at night. The sun is out today and the temp is in the low to mid 40s F.”

There have been complaints from Ann Arbor residents that City officials did a poor job providing information about warming centers to residents in need of shelter, particularly the elderly, the largest group of Ann Arbor residents according to U.S. Census data.

Twitter demographics for 2022 show that while there are 63 million Twitter users in the U.S., 12 percent of those users are 45 or older.

Officials repeatedly Tweeted out a link to a 2022 list of “Winter Weather Havens.” The list includes 17 buildings where individuals “needing to escape adverse cold conditions (real or wind chill temperature at 20 degrees or below) can temporarily stay at these weather havens before continuing to their destination.” Sixteen of the buildings are libraries, many of which closed due to loss of power and the storm. One County building is on the list: the Atrium of the Washtenaw County Human Services Building, located at 22 Center Street in Ypsilanti. Ann Arbor officials, including elected officials, Tweeted out information about day shelters, overnight shelters and shelter hours.

There was extensive criticism aimed at the Ann Arbor Public Schools. While Superintendent Jeanice Swift assured parents the District was putting a full court press on DTE to restore power to the 19 buildings that had lost power, parents wondered why the District’s 13 buildings with power were closed to students and the public as warming shelters.

On Feb. 27 an Ann Arbor resident Tweeted this out and included Liz Margolis, AAPS Executive Director, Student and School Safety: “Some AAPS high schools had power all weekend — enough to host basketball games at Huron, and a lego event at Skyline. Those are big beautiful schools with large open spaces. Why didn’t you open them up to the community as warming centers, if not shelters?”

By Feb. 26, 22 of the AAPS buildings had their power restored.

Margolis didn’t respond, but did Tweet this out on behalf of the District to DTE on Feb. 26: “Power back! Four schools still without power. It’s been a long five days. Get your sh_ _ together @DTE_Energy.”

The Ann Arbor Independent contacted long-time AAPS Trustee Susan Baskett to ask why AAPS buildings were shuttered to the public for shelter, but open for basketball games and other activities. Baskett did not respond.

The small capacity at overnight shelters was compounded by what Ann Arbor residents claimed were hotels that engaged in price gouging.

John Ware works as a Field Rep. for the American Federation of Teachers. He said, “We booked a room for Thursday through Sunday at Extended Stay America on Boardwalk Drive, only to arrive and be told they were full.”

Andrea Pierce said, “We were checking for hotels. Prices were doubling as I was trying to book. Hampton Inn Ypsi was at $58.84 as I was booking the same room it went up to $102. I got lucky and found a room in Canton.”

The Ann Arbor Independent checked Airbnb.com on Feb. 24 to see if Ann Arbor hosts had, similarly, raised prices to take advantage of the people seeking shelter from power outages. Unlike local price-gouging hotels, dozens of local Airbnb owners had sharply cut their nightly rates, some to as low as $70 per night, during the height of the outages. By Feb. 28, many of the properties that had discounted their rates had returned to their usual nightly prices.

Ann Arbor for Public Power, a group that wants to force DTE out and create a public utility in Ann Arbor by taking over DTE’s equipment, is holding a DTE outage Zoom Town Hall on March 2 at 7 p.m. Visit the group’s Facebook page to register. The meeting ID is 854 6404 2541. Follow this link to join the Mar. 2 meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/w/85464042541?tk=pM_Ah3utJOwrXc5Eljmo8FEmV3J6Co2STv8nxRfw5Nc.DQMAAAAT5g3MLRZzSGtMSzNvdVJRbW9VMDhuamp4YzNnAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&pwd=T0RBSjAvUzlnOUdKdHd6TjRPMmpaUT09&uuid=WN_G2zY56HISOmabKa4Jcp0iA