Back-to-back power outages left thousands of Milwaukee County customers without electricity Monday, after a failed piece of equipment and a round of severe storms knocked out service across the region.
We Energies says the two outages stemmed from separate problems. The first began when equipment failed at a Milwaukee substation, cutting power to about 18,000 customers before storms even arrived.
"It was a piece of equipment that failed. They replaced it actually not long after I talked to you. They brought this big piece of equipment in about 30 minutes later. All those customers were restored by yesterday afternoon," We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said.
Storms then brought down trees, wires and power poles, knocking out power to as many as 90,000 customers. We Energies deployed 500 workers, including crews from across the Midwest, to restore service.
"Here in Milwaukee County, all customers will be restored in the next few hours, probably by the time you're on the air, or they'll have their outage assigned. The city of Milwaukee itself for sure," Conway said.
Watch: Back-to-back power outages hit Milwaukee County, leaving thousands without electricity
For residents and business owners, the hours without power came with real costs. At Voyager in Bay View, owner Jordan Burich lost an entire day of business.
"For a little tiny place like us, every day counts, and, even on Mondays, we're busy on Mondays, so to lose out on a whole day is really not good," Burich said.
Burich says this is the second time this year an outage has wiped out a full day of sales.
Near Sixth and Lincoln, Bay View resident Amanda Flessas got her power back Monday night only to lose it again hours later.
"And now it's been, it'll be about 12 hours, so I think the food's going to be a total loss," Flessas said.
Milwaukee resident Janice Smith was still without power but said she was staying optimistic about the crews working to restore service.
"I would like them back on, and I know they're working so hard, so you just have to be patient," Smith said.
We Energies says hundreds of workers remain in the field and most Milwaukee County customers should have power restored today.
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