UPDATE: Portable Generator Restores Power to 300 Customers in Ferndale; 2nd in Progress

About 300 more Ferndale homes and businesses have power Friday afternoon now that one portable generator is up and running while DTE Energy workers are preparing the second one, DTE spokesman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said.

Two portable generators have been brought in to provide power to about 600 of the 2,000 Ferndale customers who are still without power. One generator was placed in east Oak Park, which is powered up, while the second one at the West Nine Mile and Dover substation is being set up.

Bodipo-Memba he didn't have an estimate on when the second generator would operational.

DTE brought in the portable generators Friday morning after cables carrying electricity to both transformers in the West Nine Mile substation blew.

Large parts of Ferndale have been without power since late Wednesday afternoon, when the power system buckled under the strain of increased demand from a dayslong heat wave. At the power outage's peak, about 6,000 homes and businesses in Ferndale were without electricity to run fans, air conditioning, large appliances and more.

The initial problem occurred when a cable to a transformer malfunctioned, cutting power to Ferndale residents starting at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. To try and get power to more customers, DTE attempted to transfer some of the load to the second transformer at the substation. At about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, the second cable on the transformer malfunctioned, causing nearly 6,000 Ferndale residents and business owners to lose power or remain without it.

The generators hooked up Friday are temporary fixes, DTE spokesman Len Singer said Friday morning.

DTE has to locate the damaged cable and fix it before it can fully restore power to Ferndale. 

"We are very close to locating the anomaly in the cable," Bodipo-Memba said late Friday afternoon. However, he didn't have an estimate on the repair.

At the West Nine substation, workers dug about a foot trench around the generator and mobile transformer. The ditch was then lined with a copper wire and copper rods were drilled into the ground. Though Bodipo-Memba was unaware of the trench, a resident said it was a grounding trench that would, in the event the generator fails, contain the voltage.

The generators will run on diesel fuel. Earlier this afternoon, a diesel fuel truck arrived to pump diesel into the generator at the West Nine Mile substation.