MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee First Responders and emergency management agencies have opened up an Emergency Operations center in downtown Milwaukee to manage Wednesday's incoming storm.
Milwaukee’s Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said the agencies learned lessons from the Aug. 10th summer storm when trees were taken down and people were left without power for days in some cases.
Multiple Milwaukee agencies are huddled together… a central information center for tonight’s storms. @tmj4 @MilFireDept @MilwaukeePolice @MilwCoSheriff @we_energies pic.twitter.com/tDkDRpftB6
— Tom Durian (@TMJ4Tom) December 16, 2021
The Milwaukee Police and Fire Departments, along with the Sheriff’s Office, Department of Forestry and We Energies all have representatives in the same room.
The idea is to create an information clearinghouse so the agencies can respond by prioritizing and assigning the information.
“What we have here is everybody in the same room working off the same list which will [take] all those different inputs and be collated in that room. We now can all function off the exact same information” said Lipski.
The group has also formed two task forces comprised of fire apparatus and We Energies crews that are stationed on the north and south sides of the county. They can respond to reports of downed lines caused by the storm.
