We Energies crews have been working around the clock to restore power after Thursday night's storms knocked out electricity for tens of thousands of customers across Kenosha County and parts of Racine County.
By 1:30 p.m. Friday, 90% of the impacted customers had their power restored, according to We Energies president Mike Hooper.
The hardest-hit area is Kenosha County, where around 4,000 customers are still in the dark. Hooper noted that areas with significant damage could still be without power through part of the weekend.
"We'll continue to work around the clock until we get those customers restored and every last person is back," he said. "We want to remind customers, from a safety standpoint, if you see downed lines, please stay away."
We Energies said high winds — or a possible tornado — took down 50 to 60 power poles and miles of power lines.
Watch: Possible tornado downs 50 power poles in Kenosha County; thousands still without electricity Friday
The damage is visible across Kenosha County, where downed trees, downed power lines, and scattered debris line the roads.
At the Jerry Smith Pumpkin Farm near Somers, the storm blew a hole through the roof of a barn. A second barn on a nearby property — where farmer Joe Smith's daughter lives — had its roof blown completely off.
Smith described the moment the storm hit.
"It was just crazy last night. Does everyone know it's — we saw it coming, and the clouds were just amazing," Smith said. "I just couldn't believe it. Then the wind came, and we immediately went down in the basement, and in the aftermath, we came back up, and we looked around at the home farm first, and it was a mess. And then we — my daughter lived down the road, we went by her place, and it got hit by the storm before, so the barn on that roof, or the roof on that barn, blew totally off. So we're waiting to get that fixed now. Last night this one blew off, so we have some people come to take a look at it today."
Smith said the direction of the debris field shows the wind hit the barn's corner directly.
Despite the damage, Smith said the cleanup is underway.
"I was happy to see the rain, but today we do have time to clean up. We'd rather be doing something else, but we have time to clean it up. So we started at the farm. We're gonna come here this afternoon to start picking all this stuff up, so it doesn't blow around to the neighbors," Smith said.
The Jerry Smith Punkin Farm is one of many properties across Kenosha County where residents and farmers are now cleaning up storm damage.
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