Major snowstorm brewing

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Here's some revealing news from DTE...

DTE Energy cut its operations budget to meet earnings projections months before a historic ice storm on Feb. 22 left more than 450,000 of its customers without power, company officials said recently as they released year-end earnings.

Job openings went unfilled. Contractors were eliminated, and overtime limited. Maintenance work was postponed, though a DTE representative says its tree trimming program is not a part of recent cuts.

The mid-November budget cuts helped keep DTE’s 100-year-old dividend payout streak to investors alive: Three weeks before the ice storm, the Detroit-based utility announced a 95-cent per-share dividend for shareholders, bringing the full-year cash payout for investors to $710 million.

The day after the storm, DTE CEO Gerardo Norcia hosted a conference call with Wall Street analysts, telling them the company delivered “strong financial results, continuing our excellent track record of creating shareholder value.”

There are some things that simply shouldn’t have shareholders. Prisons is another one.

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March 2023:
6th Snowiest at Detroit
18th Snowiest at Flint

14th Wettest at Detroit
8th Wettest at Flint
12th Wettest at Saginaw

No top 20 at any of the three locations for warmest or coldest.