By Don Rush

Strong summer winds came blowing into the area last Thursday afternoon, with it came rain, hail and in Addison Township, power outages. The storm was preceded by strong winds starting after 3 p.m.

“We only had one call for wires down, and one call to a home with brown-out type electrical issues. Both calls were in the Drahner and Sanders area and they came in about 15 minutes apart. It was pretty uneventful overall as it pertains to the storm,” Oxford Fire Chief Matt Majestic said.

Oxford Village Police Chief Micheal Solwold added, “Luckily, just some minor dents on the patrol cars but nothing reported to us as far as damage to other vehicles or property so far.”

Oxford resident Courtney Lawrence said hail started to fall around 4 p.m. The hail in her yard was about the same size as a quarter. “I got a couple of little dents in my car,” she said.

Residents in Leonard and Addison Township didn’t fare as well.

“I was standing outside the township hall when the wind started,” Addison Township Supervisor Bruce Pearson said. “And, I knew there were going to be some power outages.”

He reported that at the township hall, the hail they received around 4 p.m. was about the size of little stones. “In Leonard, the hail was marble-sized, they are without power. We had a lot of trees knocked down and a lot of the roads were closed. I had my tractor out and moved some trees off of Haven Road. But hey, that’s how we live out here. Everyone has a tractor or backhoe and a chainsaw.”

According to the online DTE Energy Power Outage map on the following morning over 1,200 customers in that community were still without power. The hardest hit area was from Lakeville down to Addison Oaks County Park, at 8 a.m. on Friday 852 homes had no power; in Leonard 289 customers were powerless; there were pockets of outages throughout the township near Rowland, Lake George, Curtis, Army and Bordman roads.

The “wind damage” outages were slated to be restored by Saturday, the DTE Energy map stated.