PLYMOUTH, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) — The city of Plymouth suffered significant damage during the storms. Officials said the northwest part of the city was hit the hardest, where several power lines and trees were downed.

“My neighbor called me at 3 a.m. and said a disaster had happened,” said Mary Rapai of Plymouth.

Residents north of Plymouth felt the brunt of strong winds, which at times reached speeds of over 70 miles per hour.

“I don’t care how young the tree is, I don’t think it will come out unscathed, but I could be wrong,” Raipai said.

“No tree is immune to the wind, no matter what condition it’s in. So it was the wind, and it wasn’t so much the force of the wind, but the swirling winds that really caused the damage,” said Art Guzman, owner of Art’s Residential Tree Service.

The City of Plymouth asks that you bundle up any tree limbs or other debris in your yard and place them at the curb (if available).

Emergency crews are working overtime to clean up. The same is true for DTE. The company said more than 300,000 customers were without power from The Thumb to the Ohio border.

“It’s not necessarily a matter of lifting a branch off a line and restoring power. There are broken poles and broken infrastructure. Replacing that infrastructure can take some time,” said Brian Calka, vice president of distribution operations at DTE Energy.

Thanks to Smart Grid technology, many customers were saved from sitting in the dark.

So far this year, DTE has installed 250 so-called “reclosers.”

“The people here can actually push buttons and operate the equipment on site, so if there is damage, they can open and close some of these devices and reroute the power to get power to a large portion of the customers before the heavy lifting of actually replacing the pole occurs,” Calka said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, DTE has restored power to more than 169,000 affected customers. The utility expects to have power restored to more than 70% of customers by the end of Wednesday, 90% by the end of Thursday and the remaining customers by Friday.

If you see downed power lines, stay at least 50 feet away and report it immediately using the DTE app or website or by calling 800-477-4747.