UPDATE: 2nd Transformer Down, Nearly 6,000 Customers Without Power in Ferndale

DTE thought it would have all power restored to Ferndale by midnight Thursday. But then a second transformer at the West Nine Mile and Dover substation failed and those plans took a turn for the worse. Now about 6,000 homes and businesses are without power during a dayslong heat wave.

"We were operating as much as we could with the second transformer and that one failed," DTE Energy spokesman John Austerberry said Thursday night.

The West Nine substation, which powers most of Ferndale, operates with two transformers. Austerberry said the initial problem was with the first transformer. When that went down, Austerberry said, DTE workers pushed some of the power to the other transformer to get power to as many customers as it could.

Around 10:30 p.m., that second transformer quit. Austerberry said DTE is working on getting that second transformer up and running as soon as possible.

"Our hope is to get the first one back in service in a few hours," he said. "That's as much as we have right now."

According to the DTE outage map, there are nearly 6,000 customers without power in Ferndale – more, not fewer, than when the power initially went out Wednesday evening in the midst of a dangerous heat wave that has gripped the Midwest. The outage began at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. At the peak Wednesday night, Ferndale had about 5,000 DTE customers without power.

To help cope with the heat and lack of power, city officials opened a cooling center at the . However, the Kulick Center lost power as well Thursday night. The building has emergency lighting and the Ferndale Fire Department provided a generator to run the fans, Ferndale Recreation Director Julie Hall said. The Fire Department is looking into providing the generator attached to one of the department's fire trucks, Hall said.

"Everyone is working through it," she said.

The center is open and it's located at 1201 Livernois.

Stay tuned to Ferndale Patch for more details.