MEQUON, Wisc. — This winter’s first round of heavy snow barreled its way through southeast Wisconsin, knocking down trees and leaving hundreds without power.
"About six o'clock last night, I heard a thud and thought it was the wind until I looked out the back of the garage and saw what was going on,” said homeowner David Berger.
Teams like Hoppe Tree Service spend hours the days after storms picking up after all the damage and homeowners like David Berger say that he knows he's one of the lucky ones.
“This is the price you pay for living with nature but we love it out here. We know, occasionally, we're going to have problems and we've been fortunate to be able to deal with them,” said Berger.
August Hoppe says his teams at Hoppe Tree Service were out early Wednesday, clearing branches off of homes like Berger’s.
"We have to drop all our regular scheduled work to service these emergency calls. So, it can be a hassle; it can be chaotic,” said Hoppe.
Hoppe says the upcoming storm this weekend is concerning and says the best defense is a good offense.
"If you wait until the tree is dead or you wait until the limbs are broken, that's a very reactionary thing to do, so try to get ahead of the situation,” said Hoppe.
Hoppe says it's important to understand your trees and know what you're dealing with.
"Trees that break in storms are generally trees that have vulnerabilities already. We can inspect the trees and we can look for those things. We can look for, you know, dead branches, or cavities in trees, or even limbs that are too heavy with end weight and where we can prune those back and make the tree stronger,” said Hoppe.
We Energies says if you have an overgrown tree, they can prune or cut down ones that could threaten electrical service for free.
They have a schedule every year where they go through communities to see if there are any areas that need some immediate help.
For people who have trees they want to get rid of that don't fall in that category, Hoppe says they try to give owners as many options as possible to keep their homes safe.
"Tree work can be expensive. It's a lot of equipment, there's insurance costs, all those have to be built in into that but we don't go and try to gouge people during storms,” said Hoppe.
With some tree removals costing hundreds of dollars, Hoppe says that effort could save you thousands in damages in the long run.
We Energies says all of the outages from Tuesday’s storms have been restored or have a crew assigned to them.
If you think you have a tree touching a power line, you can schedule a non-emergency inspection at (800) 242-9137.
For more information, click here.
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