Whitmer: Governor’s residence went days without power after storms

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Monday that the governor’s residence was still without power after last week’s storms.

Whitmer appeared at a Macomb County elementary school for the first day of school in Michigan. There she spoke to WXYZ-TV, a Detroit TV station, on the storms that ripped through Michigan last week. In addition to the thunderstorms, multiple tornadoes hit land. Afterward there were flooded freeways and mass power outages.

“I can tell you at the governor’s residence, we were without power the last few days and still are,” Whitmer told WXYZ anchor Carolyn Clifford. “I’m not complaining. I’m feeling the exact same frustration that I think others are and that’s why we’re going to continue to push to upgrade our grids, to rebuild our infrastructure, and to do our part to mitigate our impact on this climate change that is making us all feel the pain.”

As of Monday, the governor’s official residence was still without power. As of Tuesday, Michigan was the only state in America with more than 10,000 power outages, according to poweroutage.us. There were about 17,000 outages as of 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“I have talked with the leadership at our utilities. I know there is unprecedented investment happening to get lines under the ground as opposed to in the air with all these events,” said Whitmer.

Whitmer did not elaborate as to the scale of those investments. But burying power lines underground is the first thing she responded with, when asked about the path forward.

The governor’s office did not respond to a query about whether the residence has a generator.