By Tom Tolen/news@whmi.com


Residents of a condominium complex in Brighton are unhappy with the frequent power outages that are occurring in their development.

Residents of the Hamilton Farms condominiums say they have experienced five outages in a four-day period beginning last Thursday, and the most recent one — which took place early Sunday afternoon and didn’t end until late the next morning — was the longest, lasting about 20 hours. The residents say it’s bad enough that the lights went out and those with electric stoves and microwaves couldn’t use them to cook, but their furnaces went out too, leaving them in the cold Sunday night. And Hamilton Farms wasn’t the only development left in the dark on Sunday. Those who live on Spring Mountain Drive in the Spring Hill development, which is between Hamilton Farms and I-96, also experienced the lengthy outage on Sunday and Monday.

City Council member Jon Emaus, who is a condo owner at Hamilton Farms, is also unhappy with all the outages, since his law office hasn’t been open during the coronavirus outbreak and he has to work from home, using two computers. Emaus says he talked to DTE after the latest outage and was told one of the problems was two overhead lines near the Wooden Spoon restaurant kept separating from each other and then touching again. He says because of that, it didn’t register as an outage for many hours at the DTE control center, thus delaying getting a crew there. Emaus says not merely Hamilton Farms, but Brighton as a whole has too many power outages, and the city will be embarking this year on a five-year program of tree trimming to mitigate the problem. However, Emaus feels the East side of town, which includes the condominiums, has far more than its share of outages. In Emaus’s words, “I’m losing patience with the fact that we on the East side seem to be last (on the city’s priority list).”

Scott Santoni, who is president of the Hamilton Farms Board of Directors, says he is “fed up” with the frequency of outages, and says his board is going to ask DTE that all 70 condo owners get a rebate or credit on their next bill for the most recent blackout, which he says should amount to about $6,000. Santoni says the board has had to deal with DTE over the years regarding the outages, but it hasn’t done any good. He says there have been nine outages at the condo complex in the last 3-4 months, while acknowledging that some of them have been brief. Santoni says the “App” to get information on the last outage, including an estimate of when service will be restored “kept giving different times, and one time said work was completed (when the outage was still going on).” Santoni says he has been given no assurance from DTE that the situation will change for the better, saying he has “been getting their standard story for the past few years — it was an animal, the transformer or the wind.” In his own household, Santoni says he “had to throw out $50-60 worth of frozen food” because of spoilage.

JoAn Hauber of Carberry Hill - a long-time condo owner and Brighton realtor, says the problems started when the adjacent Spring Hill development came in, saying it put additional load on the transformer serving both neighborhoods. She says the transformer needs to be replaced with a higher-capacity one. Retiree Prudy Sherman, who lives with her husband on Foxboro, says that “DTE is going to have to address the problem.” She’d like to install a large, whole-house generator like a Generac, but says only small, portable generators are allowed, and they don’t run critical components, such as furnaces.

WHMI reached out to DTE for a response, with spokeswoman Randi Berris saying that Sunday’s power outage was caused by high winds. “DTE had more than 40,000 customers lose power due to the winds, which included gusts of over 50 mph,” Berris said, adding, “That kind of sustained, heavy winds will cause trees and tree limbs to come down onto power lines, causing outages.” Berris apologized for the length of the outage, while explaining that DTE crews "worked 16-hour shifts around the clock to restore power to everyone, practicing additional safety measures to keep everyone healthy due to COVID-19.” In response to our question as to why Hamilton Farms and the Spring Hill development were without electricity when other areas of the city had power, she said that “It depends on the way the circuit is configured and where the problem occurred.” Berris explained that, in her words, “We have sensors on the energy grid to try to limit the number of homes and businesses impacted when a problem does occur, and so sometimes people on one side of a street will be impacted, while their neighbors are not.” Berris said that the outages of far shorter duration that occurred last Thursday were caused by the windy conditions and, in one case, a squirrel that interfered with equipment on the power lines.

Mike Bignell, who has lived at Hamilton Farms since the development was constructed in the 1970's, says, “It’s enormously frustrating when you drive out and all the nearby areas have their lights on, and it’s gotten progressively worse.”

Berris said that DTE will be investigating to see what can be done to reduce the number of outages on that side of town. In her words, “We are committed to providing reliable and affordable energy and to giving our customers peace of mind that the power will be there when they need it.”