DETROIT — More than 95% of DTE Energy's 2.18 million Metro Detroit customers have had their power restored, after massive storms swept through the area last week, including a tornado that touched down in Detroit, causing outages for more than 350,000 homes, the utility reported Saturday.
According to the DTE website, 95.7% of their customers have had service restored as of 9:40 a.m. Saturday. Consumer's Power reported Saturday that power to 99.994% of their customers had been restored.
More: Detroit tornado's winds reached 115 mph; smaller twister hit Lincoln Park
DTE said its Storm Response Team had restored power to more than 388,000 customers affected by the storms as of Saturday morning and more than 4,000 team members will continue working "around the clock until everyone is back on.
"We expect 90% of those affected by the storms to have power restored by the end of today, with the remainder restored by end of day Sunday," DTE said on its online outage center.
Thursday's storms, with heavy rain and wind gusts as high as 75 mph, caused outages for more than 350,000 utility customers across southeast Michigan. By 3:30 p.m. Friday, DTE Energy reported that 241,000 customers were still without power, down from 255,345 at 10 a.m.
In Detroit, Mayor Mary Sheffield signed an executive order declaring a local state of emergency Friday evening in response to heavy damage done in the city's east side by a tornado. The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado touched down in Detroit.
The tornado that struck Detroit's east side the afternoon of Sept. 3 tore through a 3.5-mile path at a peak wind speed of 115 miles per hour over four minutes, according to a preliminary survey from the National Weather Service.
The tornado lasted from 4:14 p.m. to 4:18 p.m. Sept. 3, according to the report. Its fury snapped trees and poles, blew walls and roofs off buildings, ripped traffic signals off their moorings and collapsed some vacant structures.
The weather service also confirmed Sept. 4 that a brief EF0 tornado touched down in Lincoln Park on Sept. 3, damaging trees and electrical lines near Memorial Park.
The tornado touched down about 4:12 p.m., two minutes before the Detroit twister touched down, along Fort Street near Memorial Park and traveled about 0.16 miles before lifting near the Senior Center about a minute later.
The tornado had estimated peak winds of 70 mph and reached a maximum width of 50 yards.
Staff writer Julia Cardi contributed.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: DTE: Power restored to 95% of customers following heavy storms, Detroit tornado