Vice Chairman & Group President, DTE Energy
DTE Electric official discusses preps underway ahead of holiday winter storm
DTE Electric President Trevor Lauer held a press conference Wednesday to discuss preps underway ahead of the major winter storm.
About Trevor Lauer
In December 2022, Trevor Lauer, then President of DTE Electric, held a press conference to discuss the company's preparations for Winter Storm Elliott. Lauer stated that the storm was expected to bring 6 to 12 inches of heavy snow, 12 hours of 50 to 60 mile per hour winds, and frigid temperatures with wind chills well below zero. He said that some customers would lose power and that DTE was coordinating with CMS Energy and the state of Michigan. Lauer noted that utilities across the country were seeking additional resources and that East Coast utilities were offering incentives for linemen. Lauer advised customers to prepare for potential outages and emphasized safety measures. He warned against bringing generators indoors due to the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, which he described as an odorless and extremely dangerous gas. Lauer also urged the public to stay away from downed wires marked by yellow caution tape, recommending a distance of at least a bus length. He stated that DTE had approximately 700 restoration workers and that the company would ask employees to work through the weekend to restore power. Lauer expressed concern about the storm's wind impact, saying that consistent gusts of 60 miles per hour or higher could create a much more significant event for Michigan.
Transcript (24 segments)
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Trevor Lauer0:11
That stretches from Oregon to Maine. We expect the major intense piece of that storm to come to Michigan between noon on Friday and midnight on Friday. A lot of meteorologists are calling this a bomb cyclone. I'm not a meteorologist. I'll describe it this way: we're going to have 6 to 12 inches of very heavy snow, we're going to have 12 hours of 50 to 60 mile an hour winds, followed by very frigid temperatures with wind chills we expect to be well below zero. We will have some customers lose power. We're coordinating very closely with CMS Energy and the state of Michigan also on how to best deal with this situation, but we wanted to make sure at this point that we give...
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Interviewer1:14
Other than call the number and you hear your power is going to be set in a certain amount of time, right? Any other advice?
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Trevor Lauer1:19
Yeah, well, there's a couple pieces of advice I'd give a customer that has lost power. First, I have to talk about carbon monoxide poisoning. At times like this, customers will want to bring generators in and use them inside of their homes. I implore anybody, if you have a generator, you use a generator, you have to keep it outside of your home first and foremost. Be safe with that. Then you can contact DTE or the other utilities in the state because this will be a statewide event. Multiple ways, all of us have opportunities where you can use an app on your phone or you can call the call center. The information comes to us at the exact same time in the exact same way, so whatever is easiest for the...
Restoration resources or line people that will be able to do actual restoration, in addition to hundreds of others that will help. So we will come and we will restore the outages, but keep yourself warm and prepare because it's going to be very cold if you do lose power.
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Interviewer2:32
The restoration process, getting to live people out there, and at the same time when there's 50 mile per hour winds, how dangerous is it to do that? And will you delay getting people up there just because?
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Trevor Lauer2:48
Yeah, because of the nature of this winter storm, it's going to make restoration much harder. So we're going to work with local communities. The first thing you have to do is get the roads...
Which is still pretty good wind gusts, right? But that's wind that our people can work in, and we'll start doing the restoration. So by Friday, more by Saturday morning early, we'll understand how many customers have been affected. Then we can figure out what's the best way to dispatch all of those outages, how do you prioritize those based on different circumstances, and then really start the restoration process for our customers.
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Interviewer3:37
Yeah, what I would say with an event like this is the weather is still two days out, and five miles an hour of wind one way or another can make a huge difference in the number of customers that are affected. So I don't want to guess on how many customers will be affected at this point. The point of our...
That if you want to pick up the phone and call somebody to bring in extra help, that's not available now?
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Trevor Lauer4:17
Yeah, every utility in the country is looking for assistance. The utilities on the East Coast are actually paying huge incentives to try to get linemen to come to the East Coast also to help because of the number of outages expected as this storm moves across the country. There's an intense period of somewhere of 12 to 18 hours of it hitting each state as it moves across with these high intense winds, and so there's no help.
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Interviewer4:42
Yeah, yeah.
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Trevor Lauer4:45
They have the resources. We have not everybody is going to be impacted equally, Rod. So I would expect that once we get through the major impact, there will be assistance that will be out in the various areas.
Utilities are like everybody else. They're looking forward to spending the time with their loved ones. We're asking many of them to cancel those plans right now and to plan on working Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to make sure that we can restore our customers and make sure everybody's safe.
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Interviewer5:25
Is it okay to give people gifts for being out there in such terrible conditions?
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Trevor Lauer5:31
Well, the one thing we do is take care of our employees at DTE, and I'm really proud of the way that we take care of our employees here at DTE. So we have special practices that we put in place. That's still not enough to keep you away from your loved ones over a holiday. Everybody works hard, looks forward to these blessed times with their families, but we have 2.2 million households and businesses that count on us right now. So DTE will show...
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Interviewer6:10
And it's your ability to respond. What worries me the most about the storm is the level of wind impact. Snow is bad, cold weather is bad, we can deal with that and we do deal with it. Depending on how hard the winds hit, it can really change the nature of an event like this. So the wind staying in the 40 to 50 mile an hour range, I look at it and say customers, we've got it, we'll clean this up pretty quick. It's not a big issue. If we start to get consistent gusts into the 60s and higher, it could cause a much higher potential event for the state of Michigan.
It won't turn down cookies and cocoa?
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Trevor Lauer6:48
No, no, no. If you want to give any employee working cookies and a cup of coffee, I'm sure they would appreciate it.
Three-person crews, so it'll vary depending on... 700 line people, linemen, line women that'll actually do restoration, will have an additional thousand that are working on things like wire down dispatching. There's a whole series of other activities, support activities that help support that, so you can keep everybody moving as efficiently as possible through the restoration process.
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Interviewer7:36
500-ish doing stuff according to grow?
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Trevor Lauer7:38
Yes, yes, minimum.
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Interviewer7:43
Yes, with this building will be open and going. All of our service centers will be working very actively.
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Trevor Lauer7:50
So maybe just two last thoughts that I would leave everybody with. First is wire down. We do expect that in an event like this, there will be some wires that...
Safe as quickly as we can, but when you get a massive wind event, they happen all at once. So if you see a wire down or if you believe there's a wire down, please call DTE. A rule of thumb we use: stay a bus length away from the yellow tape. That's a good way to stay safe. The second message I would give is carbon monoxide. When you lose power, people will try to find ways to keep themselves warm when it is frigid. You cannot bring a generator inside your home. Carbon monoxide poisoning, it's an odorless gas, it is extremely dangerous. So we just urge: wire down and carbon monoxide, pay attention to it. And if you have issues, call your local police, call your local fire department. There's a lot of places that will be geared up and ready to go.