Power goes out in Orion and Oxford

By Don Rush

It was a crisp, sunny morning last Wednesday, March 15. The sky was blue, with nary a cloud to be seen. There was a slight breeze and the temperature was peaking over 32 degrees, when all of a sudden at around a quarter to 11, lights went dark. Computers shut down. The power went out.

According to a DTE Energy power outage map at 11:50 that morning, the outage spread north and east from Oakland Township on Adams Road, between Stoney Creek and Orion roads, east to almost Friendship Park at Clarkston and Baldwin roads in Orion and up M-24 to downtown Oxford. By noon, the outage map had spread throughout many communities in Southeastern Michigan, from down river south of Detroit, over past Ann Arbor and up to the Saginaw Bay.

The online outage map indicated the power issue was because of “equipment problem(s).”

At a little after 11 a.m., Oxford Community Schools released this statement to parents, “There is a large area experiencing a power outage. Within the district, Oxford Virtual Academy (on S. Washington Street), Oxford Elementary School and Oxford Early Learning Center (both on Pontiac Street), and Daniel Axford Elementary (on Mechanic Street) are currently without power which is also affecting their phone service. Schools are operating as scheduled and lunch service for students is being accommodated.”

Oxford Village Police issued this statement, “For reasons unknown, the light at M-24 and Burdick is out as well as M-24 and Drahner. Please treat these intersections as 4 way stops and pack your patience. Contacts have been made to get the problem resolved. Thank you and stay safe.”

Oxford Village Police Chief Mike Solwold said, “Equipment problem is all we know. Orion Supervisor Chris Barnett seems to have more answers. As far as our action, when the power goes out we stay visible and alert people what is going on and to treat intersections as four-way stops when traffic lights are out. We call officers in early in case the volume of calls or needs arise. There are only so many officers on patrol and they need to be available for calls and it’s dangerous to stand in the roadway to direct traffic unless absolutely necessary. If this would have drug into the afternoon rush then we would have the DPW bring barrels out to block off turn lanes and force drivers to go north south east west.”

According to Barnett, 12,845 homes and businesses in Orion lost power roughly from the Lake Orion High School campus on Lapeer Road, north through Lake Orion Village, “ . . . about a two mile wide band with Lapeer Road seemingly being the center.”

Dave Akerly, Senior Communications Strategist for DTE Energy answered our emailed questions, “Thanks for the inquiry about the outage in your area. We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused by this latest brief outage. Here’s what happened: There was an equipment issue that occurred just before 11 a.m. with pole top equipment connected to a local substation. When that first circuit opened, it tripped and caused an outage at a second substation, a portion of which feeds parts of the Oxford area.

“Total customers affected were about 11,300 – 90% of whom were restored by 2 p.m. However, on performing that restoration, what we call “trouble behind trouble” was discovered on another part of one circuit. Those customers, about 1,000, were restored shortly after 5 p.m. Once all power was restored, repairs to the damaged equipment and replacements got underway.

“As for the other outages you saw at that time on our map, none of those were in any way related to the event you had in Oxford today.”