Still 20,000 We Energies customers affected by power outages in SE Wisconsin

As powerful storms rolled through our region Monday evening, over 40,000 We Energies customers lost service across Wisconsin.

As of Tuesday morning, about 20,000 customers are still affected by power outages, according to their outage map.

Around 4:35 p.m. Monday, all of Milwaukee County was being hit by a downpour with nonstop lightning. The city's southside saw the worst of the storm with winds over 60 mph and hail up to 1" in diameter. At the same time, over 9,700 WE Energies customers were out of service. However, a majority of those customers were coming out of Waukesha County.

Waukesha County was in a Severe Thunderstorm Warning until 4:45 p.m. Waukesha County was met with blinding rain, over 65 mph winds, ping pong ball hail and nonstop lightning.

By 5 p.m., the latest number on We Energies' outage map climbed to over 29,600 customers.

We-Energies.com

Shortly after 6 p.m., that number grew to nearly 42,000. Almost 12,000 of those customers were in Oak Creek, over 6,000 near South Milwaukee, and about 2,000 in Franklin.

Shortly before 9 p.m., it dropped to about 38,000 customers in Wisconsin. By 10:30 p.m., it increased again to 40,600 customers.

According to We Energies, in the aftermath of high winds, hail and thousands of lightning strikes, a total of 45,000 customers lost power. We Energies says their goal is to have 90% of customers restored by noon Tuesday, and the remainder of customers restored or their outage assigned by 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Crews will be working overnight and We Energies expect significant help from other Wisconsin utility crews starting at 3 a.m.

In an update Tuesday morning, We Energies said more than 25,000 customers had restored power after Monday's storms. More than 500 people were working on restoration Tuesday including workers from across the state.

Crews patrolled the hardest hit areas with significant damage, including some power circuits that need to be rebuilt.

People are urged to stay at least 25 feet away from any downed wires and report them to We Energies or a local law enforcement agency immediately.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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