Get the latest outage numbers from We Energies' outage map here.
SE WISCONSIN — Friday afternoon WE Energies said it had restored power to more than 115,000 customers and 85% of those impacted should be restored by midnight. But it may take Until the end of Saturday to get the rest back on the grid.
To stay up to date on outages and when you can expect you power to come back on,click here for WE Energies outage map.
In Port Washington, Clint Nogalski said his power went out around 4:30 a.m. He lives near Port Washington High School and he was out snow blowing when he noticed lights flickering.
"Next thing you know, I see a bunch of colored lights in the sky and stuff and the transformers blew," Nogalski said.
We interviewed him just before 4 p.m. on Friday. He said he'd gotten a notification that his power should be back on at 4 p.m. We checked in several hours later and he still didn't have power.
He said his house was starting to get cold and was worried about his two young sons.
"They're getting very cold," Nogalski said. "We're probably gonna go up by my sister's house because they have heat."
Nogalski said he was frustrated with the hours long outage. He's now thinking about investing in back up energy sources.
"I think I might invest in a generator maybe, or do some solar panels down the road maybe," he shared. "I have another boy on the way, so I wanna be able to keep them warm and stuff and keep the food cold."
Thousands in the Port Washington area lost power at some point during the storm. Some had their power restored by noon.
But even those who had power restored, still had issues. Justin Franke, co-owner of Professional Services, had been taken calls all morning about heating issues.
"About 11:30 [a.m.] it looks like most of the neighborhood came back on, but it appears everybody took a power surge," Franke said.
Most of his calls had been in the neighborhood just north of the High School.
"A lot of panels are dead. And a lot of the HVAC equipment in the area did take that surge and zapped," Franke said about what he was seeing.
For those have issues with their heat even with the power restored, Franke cautions against trying to make any fixes on you own.
"Definitely don't go into your electrical panel. The last thing you want to be doing is hunting around in there, there could be some open lines in there. Call a professional," he warned.
As of about 5 p.m. he said he'd been to 15 houses and still had about a dozen left to service. Franke said he's never seen a surge like this one in that neighborhood before.
"Thank god we have a couple extra blankets to stay warm," said Charles Windham, who lives near 23rd and Lancaster. Power along his entire block got knocked out.
"They said there was a hot wire or something. They [We Energies] was letting us know that they didn't want anybody going back there because they said they didn't want nobody getting killed," said Windham.
Power lines running through Windham's backyard were damaged. And without an alley for access, We Energies isn't able to get its large trucks to the damage. So, they have to use smaller equipment, and take more precautions, which can delay restoration times.
"Yes, it's an inconvenience for customers. But our biggest thing is safety for our guys in the overall broad picture," said Jeb Loth, Operations Supervisor for We Energies. "We're all hands on deck right now. We will be staffed 24-7, until the last customer is restored."
Giovanni McVicker, who lives near the Estabrook Park Neighborhood, said he was going to pick up some extra cash shoveling snow. But it may go straight to new food.
"Man, I ain't gonna lie to you. It's been a few hours man, and I don't like it man. Cause it's gone and messed up a lot of food [in the refrigerator]," said McVicker, who's cellphone battery was also running low.
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