As We Energies crews continue working to restore power to Southeast Wisconsin following Friday’s winter storm, thousands remain in the dark as temperatures have plummeted below zero and a Wind Chill Advisory is in effect until Wednesday morning.
As of 11:45am Monday, there were still 6,400 customers without power per the We Energies outage map.
RELATED: 70,000+ We Energies customers without power in Southeast Wisconsin snowstorm
The bitter cold has added to the laundry list of difficulties crews have been navigating while working to restore power. Snow-covered roads made the early stages of relief difficult, and that was compounded by immediate cold icing over any untreated surfaces. It necessitated what Field Operations Vice President Dave Megna called a “small army” of crew members from other areas as far away as Indiana being asked to assist with the repairs.
Some residents received texts over the weekend saying “special crews” had been assigned to their outage due to the nature of the event. “What that’s basically telling people is we’re on-site, we’ve identified it, but we can’t [fix] it with the stuff we have on scene” Media Relations Director Brendan Conway told WTMJ Sunday. “We have to bring something else, someone else, or some other crew.”
Conway added Monday that with the cold temperatures, crews are working in shifts and taking more breaks than usual. Still, the goal remains to have the entire area back to full power by the end of the day Monday.
“They all have good equipment, and they also have a mission: to get the lights back on and the power flowing for everybody.” Conway said of the workers across the region. “These people, they live in Wisconsin or they come from the Midwest so they know this is a real critical thing that their customers need. And they’re so focused on that.”
Those still without power are encouraged to contact 211 for a warming shelter nearest to them. You can find more information here.
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