A statement from Warren Mayor James R. Fouts regarding the slow process to restore power to the residents of the City of Warren.
Warren Mayor Fouts is very disappointed in the media for not highlighting the City’s great efforts of converting the Warren Community Center to an emergency warming center that offers its residents hot food, hot beverages, showers, and power generators. More importantly however, is that the City of Warren will also provide transportation to and from the Warren Community Center for its residents who are unable to make it to the Warming Center on their own. Sadly, but not unpredictably, the media instead decided to focus on the recall efforts.
The Media has again fallen short of its obligations to inform the public who are residing in impacted communities that multiple warming centers that have been opened, and decided to focus on sensationalism, not informative journalism.
The fact is that while the City of Warren has an abundance of generators for needy Warren residents, sadly, the public, not being informed of this fact, was not able to take advantage of our efforts in setting up the warming center located at the Warren Community Center.
While the City of Warren sent out a press release to inform the public that Warren Community Center has been converted into a warming center, and stressed the fact that the City offers free generators and space heaters, however, due to the media’s decision to focus on sensationalism, not public service, some residents of the City of Warren, not aware of the Community Center that has been converted into a Warming Center, were forced to spend the night in very frigid weather without any heat.
Note: Detroit Edison contacted Mayor Fouts yesterday to indicate that the City of Warren had 10,000 residents without power!