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State regulators investigating DTE outages, line death

The Michigan Public Service Commission is investigating DTE Electric Co.'s recent storm-related outages and the death of a woman who came in contact with a downed power line. More than 300,000 DTE customers lost power May 4 when a storm with winds gusting to 70 mph hit southeast Michigan. Power wasn't restored to some until several days later.

The commission said in an order Thursday that it's concerned parts of DTE's distribution system cannot provide safe and reliable service during large storms, as is required by law. Among other things, it wants to know if system maintenance, or a lack thereof, contributes to safety hazards and other problems. It gave DTE until June 29 to file a safety and incident report.

A message seeking comment was left for DTE.