Roughly 17,000 residents remain without power in southeastern Wisconsin, but crews expect most of those people to be back up by the end of the day, a WE Energies spokesman said on March 14.
At least 130,000 people in Wisconsin were without power after intense winds blew through the area mid-day on March 13, according to Brendan Conway, a WE Energies spokesperson. He said crews from four states have come into Wisconsin or are on the way.
“We are throwing everything we got at this,” Conway said.
He said the crews are working urgently, knowing that a strong winter storm is expected to arrive in Wisconsin on Sunday and last into Monday, bringing ice and snow to a large swath of the state.
The National Weather Service is projecting more than two feet of snow to fall in the northern half of Wisconsin, while warmer temperatures will bring a mix of ice and snow with lower accumulations to southeastern Wisconsin.
At 9:30 a.m. March 14, there were about 17,000 people without power, according to WE Energies power outage map.
Milwaukee County had the most outages at roughly 4,600; followed by Waukesha County with 3,000 residents out and Washington, Ozaukee and Racine counties with more than 2,000 out in each county.
Conway said 90-95% of customers should be back by the end of Saturday, adding the last 5% will take the most time because those outages typically affect one or just a few customers.
The public is reminded to stay at least 25 feet from downed wires and report them immediately to local law enforcement by calling 911 and call We Energies at 800-662-4797.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: We Energies works to restore power to customers ahead of snowstorm
Reporting by John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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