MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Thousands of people across southeast Wisconsin dealt with power outages that lasted days, spoiling food, freezing pipes and now, the bitter cold is making an already difficult situation even worse.
“When the power went out, you could hear it, you could actually hear the power just go,” said Marlo Pryor.
Marlo Pryor and her family have had a rough few days.
They lost power on Friday during the storm, leaving her, her daughter and her 6 grandchildren without many options.
“I’m just sitting up there, and it started to get darker and colder. So, I'm like, what are we supposed to do?” said Pryor.
They headed to her mother’s house to wait it out and warm up.
“The kids weren’t actually dressed, we weren’t actually dressed in the house. So, we're scrambling around trying to find clothes to put on just to leave to go outside in the cold,” said Pryor.
Less than 24 hours after her lights came back on, she woke up this morning to another awful surprise: no water after a main broke on her block.
“I heard noises, I went outside. I saw trucks and I saw water spewing out,” said Pryor.
We saw crews working on the repair near 76th and Bobolink Tuesday afternoon.
Milwaukee Water Works says the Pryors could be without water because of the main break or due to frozen lines.
They’re currently in the process of determining what it could be and getting their service restored.
Still, Marlo says it’s been overwhelming, both financially and emotionally.
“I gotta keep going and pray that everything is gonna be all right,” said Pryor.
For families like the Pryors that may make too much for SNAP benefits but weren’t expecting to deal with these unnecessary and unexpected expenses, places like Hunger Task Force can not only give them emergency food, but also connect them to resources to help them get over these hurdles.
“There's a network of emergency food organizations that we partner with,” said Michael Jonas, Food Bank Director, Hunger Task Force. “We serve every zip code.”
Food Bank Director Michael Jonas says the organization’s self-service centers work to get the community linked with what’s out there, like potential reimbursement for lost food due to outages and paying for medical expenses.
“The staff there not only speak a number of different languages and can help people get through those things, but they're really the experts and know the different ins and outs of the specifics about a lot of the programs,” said Jonas.
While she’s thankful these resources exist, Marlo says her family is able stay with relatives while they wait for their water to start flowing again.
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