Fewer than 70,000 remain without power in Michigan

Fewer than 75,000 in Michigan remained without power Sunday night following storms as restoration efforts from the state's leading energy providers continue.

DTE Energy reported 40,000 customers remained without power early Monday.

Consumers Energy reported early Monday fewer than 28,000, with 98% of outages restored by Sunday night.

Storms this week left more than 850,000 customers of DTE and Consumers Energy without power after severe weather ripped through the Midwest. Both companies remain poised to meet original targets of returning power to the vast majority by Sunday evening, though thousands still could see outages into next week.

The company has 3,000 workers — joined by 1,200 from New York, Louisiana, Florida and Canada — working to restore power in the state.

Fifteen percent of about 376,000 Consumers Energy customers who lost power awaited restoration Sunday, said company spokesman Josh Paciorek. Consumers Energy expects nearly all customers to see power restored by the evening, he said.

Areas that will still need repairs beyond the weekend are mainly those that were the hardest hit with downed wires, fallen trees and broken poles still being removed, the company said Sunday in a news release.

Thursday's storm left thousands of downed power lines in one of "the top 10 storms in our company’s 135-year history,” Guy Packard, Consumers Energy’s vice president for electric operations, said earlier this week.

Customers remained angry at repeated power outages and flooding as storms and heavy downpours occurred this summer. At least one community leader and legislator called for the utilities to explain the vast number of outages in the latest storm.

AHarring@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @alex_harring