Huntington Woods Tallies Storm Cleanup Tab

Cleaning up after storms that tore through southeast Michigan last week, leaving power outages and downed trees in their path, has been costly for Huntington Woods.

The city had to deploy workers on overtime as well as tap Wonsey Tree Service of Berkley to clean up after a series of weather events beginning with that knocked out power to much of the city.

"At one time, eighty to ninety percent of the city didn't have power, which is just about the hardest we've ever been hit," City Manager Alex Allie said.

"I just hope these storms aren't the new normal," Allie said, referencing wild weather experienced throughout the Midwest this spring and summer. "It seems like we're just getting hammered."

Last week's outages forced the , and to close Wednesday through Friday and, at their peak, left more than 2,150 customers in the city without power.

DTE was able to restore service to most Huntington Woods customers over the weekend, and the utility's outage map showed none were without power Tuesday.

"Slowly, but surely, we're getting back to normal," Allie said.

manager Claire Galed said the storm cleanup required overtime and outside assistance. 

"Four employees worked approximately 4 1/2 hours on July 4," Galed e-mailed Berkley Patch. "We also had to have a couple of people come get a hanger in the street on Friday evening and a tree in a driveway on Saturday. ... In addition, we did have Wonsey Tree Service in Huntington Woods on Thursday to tackle several of the downed tree branches so that we could catch up."

She put the cost of tree-trimming services and overtime on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at approximately $2,000.

"Obviously we are never excited about having to work overtime from a budgeting standpoint, but we feel fairly lucky as it could have been a lot worse," Galed wrote.

She said that because Huntington Woods is near the beginning of its fiscal year, budget adjustments will not have to be made. However, the city will have to watch its expenses more carefully as the year progresses, Galed said.

The city will make an emergency disaster declaration through the state of Michigan, according to Allie.

"Sometimes they will provide you some investment, but I am not real optimistic," he said. "It's going to be expensive, there's no doubt about it."

Allie said some of DTE's repairs were temporary fixes and that residents can expect work to continue on lines throughout Huntington Woods. He added that branches that were broken during the storms continue to fall, so cleanup will be ongoing.

"We've had our storm for the year, thank you very much," Galed quipped.