Fire Chief Implores Ferndale Residents to Conserve Power

Despite DTE Energy restoring Ferndale's power circuits to 100 percent and several residents and businesses announcing they have electricty, Ferndale Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan said now is the time to conserve energy.

"We're still need to be careful with our energy consumption," Sullivan said. "As DTE flicks the switch on neighborhoods, fans are plugged in, lights are on, phone chargers are plugged in, the usage meter will skyrocket."

The chief said it's important for Ferndale residents and businesses to turn off and unplug whatever they aren't using to keep usage as low as possible as DTE regains its footing in Ferndale.

"If we don't conserve the energy now, we could be right where we were yesterday," he said Saturday morning.

Sullivan said that though DTE has restored Ferndale's circuits to 100 percent, the department still has to check all the transformers and make sure everything is in working order.

"Only use things you need and turn off things you don't need," he said. "It's critical to do this."

Ferndale's power went out Wednesday around 5:30 p.m. DTE said it was due to the excessively high temperatures – the dayslong heat wave had the area sweltering in the 90s all week and reaching 100 degrees Thursday. As of Thursday night, nearly 6,000 Ferndale homes and businesses were without power. There were widespread outages through Friday and Saturday morning. At 2:30 a.m., DTE had to shut down the majority of Ferndale customers to repair a cable. As of 6 a.m., DTE reported that all circuits were up and running.