SAGINAW COUNTY, Mich. -- Due to the weekend’s storm activity, the city of Saginaw and Saginaw County have formally requested state help for cleanup efforts.

Saginaw County Emergency Director Tim Genovese said a state of emergency has been declared so that formal governmental help can begin assisting with debris clearing and power restorations.

Genovese said the county and city have exhausted their resources.

The emergency declaration allows the county and city to request state assistance with the storm cleanup, and to request any state recovery funds that might be available.

Ronnie Turner is just one of thousands of people who have been without power for nearly a week.

Wednesday he watched as Consumers Energy crews worked to get things back to normal in Saginaw.

Consumers Energy expects to have all of their customers back up and running by Thursday.

For many people, the power could not come back on quickly enough.

Many have lost food during the outage and are hoping they will be compensated.

Consumers Energy said that is unlikely to happen.