DTE substation fire and Ann Arbor power outage, June 28, 2012

ANN ARBOR (June 28, 2012): A fire at a DTE substation on South State Street caused over 6,000 people to lose power on the hottest day of the year so far. The fire was located at the State Substation, located between South State Street and Boardwalk near the Ann Arbor Public Schools Balas Administration Building.

A number of organizations have been reported to be affected by the outage. News coverage includes reporting from Detroit WXYZ Channel 7, AnnArbor.com, and the Ann Arbor Chronicle.  

Buses on the AATA Route 6 are delayed between 25 and 49 minutes as of 5:20 pm, according to the AATA's Mobile Ridetrak. Expect bus system delays systemwide, from the AATA press release:

Routes that serve southern Ann Arbor near Scio Church Rd, State St, S. Industrial Hwy, and Briarwood are experiencing major delays as traffic backs up in those areas due to traffic light outages.  This includes routes 6, 7, 15 & 36.  However, routes across the entire system are also suffering delays.

A major accident near Carpenter Rd and Packard Rd is creating traffic backups in that area.  Routes 5, 6 & 22 are experiencing significant delays as a result.

You might want to have an emergency sump pump and basement water sensor and alarm. Be aware of approaching weather with a weather alert radio and a hand crank emergency radio. Or spring for a 27 kilowatt whole house generator that runs on propane or natural gas.

DTE Energy outage map at 5:06 pm:

Google Traffic map, showing congestion on S State St:

Finally, the Wundermap from the Weather Underground showing just how beastly hot it is.